Flanked by the Everglades and the Gulf Coast and entwined with rivers, streams and wetlands, Southwest Florida is defined by its aquatic proximities. Naturally, the elemental force flows as a permeating influence on the art created and curated along our shores. As ubiquitous as the symbol is, the interpretations, depictions and the mediums chosen to embody it are as vast and varied as the ocean itself. Water is as fierce, wild and awe-strikingly destructive as it is serene, mysterious and healing. In ancient times, our ancestors clung to the water, anchoring the very cornerstones of civilization to its awesome judgment and protection. The inextricable link between these two cyclical entities—life and water—is at its peak in these works from local artists and galleries.
Harmony by Christy Lee Rogers
Growing up in Hawaii, Christy Lee Rogers’ connection to the water has always been two-fold. The same elemental force that has thrown the underwater photographer from her surfboard and thrashed her against the rocky seabed brings an inexplicable sense of calm and weightlessness. “It’s life-giving and nurturing, right? You couldn’t live without it, but it will destroy you in a moment,” she says. This dichotomy seeps into works like Harmony, which reflects on control, vulnerability and the duality of being human. Christy captures her images in the dead of night or at indoor pools to maintain perfect control of how her tungsten lights bend through the watery void. This intentional use of chiaroscuro (strong light-dark contrasts) produces ethereal images with peaceful expressions and billowing fabrics floating in a weightless environment. Though her work relies on precision, Christy says there is no way to gain perfect control over the elements: “You can resist everything and try to control everything, or you can just be. There’s a beauty to just being.” View Christy’s work at Method & Concept in Naples.
Harmony by Christy Lee Rogers
Christy Lee Rogers’ Harmony (2018) shot in Hawaii
Marco Hotel by photographer Austin Bell
Austin Bell believes water holds memory. The historian and photographer, who spent many years capturing Collier County historical landmarks and their links to the oceans and rivers of the region, cannot help but draw connections to the past through an aquatic lens. Out on the Gulf, Austin feels a sense of connection, as if the waves whisper stories of older days, of settlers whose waterfront pit stops now stand obscured by beach homes, and of the native Calusa peoples who dug canals and paddled canoes through an untouched landscape. “Living [on Marco Island] and getting out on the water gave me, basically, the same perspective as those people hundreds or even thousands of years ago,” he says. “It’s just that things on the land have changed.” Using a camera from the era in which his subject was constructed, Austin shoots historical sites with long-standing connections to the water; he merges them with images of the water bodies that once defined their purpose through a haunting double exposure technique. For Marco Hotel, he photographed the 1896 site, which first served settlers traveling the region by water and the channel between the Marco and Collier Bays that formed their path. “The overarching message was about change, the past versus the present and whether development and change is good or bad; I try to leave it to the viewer to interpret,” he says. Find Austin’s work on his Instagram profile.
Austin Bell’s Marco Hotel (2021)
Austin Bell’s Marco Hotel
Well Spring by Rick Eggert
Off the coast of Long Island, a young Rick Eggert is hooked over the side of his father’s sailboat, watching a slush of icy winter water. “I always imagined it was glass curling over the waves,” Rick says. The chilly image stays with the now-grown glass artist. Even as he bends over his blazing kiln amid Florida’s summer inferno, the links between glass, water and ice remain embedded in his mind. “The glass really wants to be water,” he says. “Even if you just stop turning it [over the heat], it makes a water drop. That’s one of [the medium’s] most natural forms.” Rick often leverages this quality of molten glass to blow life into his water-inspired sculptures, creating a sense of movement and energy through repetitive, whirling forms that mimic lapping waves, bubbles and—as in Well Spring—a splash. View Rick’s work at Shaw Gallery in Naples.
Rick Eggert’s Well Spring (2022)
Rick Eggert’s Well Spring
Querencia by Naples-born artist Reisha Perlmutter
Reisha Perlmutter didn’t realize how fundamental her Southwest Florida upbringing—with its coastal creatures, neighboring Everglades and powerful storms—was to her sense of self until she moved away. Now based in New York, the painter often returns home to Naples. She recognizes how her innate connection to the world beneath the Gulf waves fostered philosophical revelations in her, the child who eschewed TV in favor of outdoor play. “I realized, maybe my place in this world isn’t necessarily about me, but it’s in my connection to something bigger,” she says. Reisha’s process is rooted in freedom, authenticity, vulnerability and alignment; the artist first photographs her subjects as they submerge, nude, in tranquil water bodies around the globe. She then interprets the image in oil paint. Realism merges with the emotion and atmosphere of the shoot, resulting in honest and ethereally raw portraits. “Being in the water forces you to be completely organic,” Reisha says. “You need to breathe, to swim and move and keep yourself alive—you really can’t pose. I’m not the one controlling the image and, because of that, there’s something that feels really authentic and organic and only happens in the water.” Find Reisha’s work on her website.
Reisha Perlmutter’s Querencia (2024)