Christy Lee Rogers, underwater photography

Photographer CHRISTY LEE ROGERS sets off on another aquatic exploit for her first solo show with THE OUTSIDERS LONDON

É L A N

Fri 6th June – Sat 5th July 2014
Private view: Thurs 5th June 6pm-9pm

ÉLAN: French for vigour, spirit, and an enthusiasm typically revealed by assurance or brilliance of performance, is a fitting title for her new body of completely un-manipulated photographs. All will be released as very limited editions in a small number of sizes. 24 different works make up ÉLAN, all heavily influenced by the circus in its many guises. It’s a subject that has entranced many, such as the Impressionist school, who are drawn in by the romance which certain gifted physical forms are so capable of communicating.

“I was inspired by Paris, the performances of the Moulin Rouge, the old circuses, wild abandonment and that feeling of letting go that explodes out of you like you?re drunk with love,” says the artist.

Christy’s new work features a gentle mix of the classical, the abstract, and the wild. They depict a multiplicity of entangled bodies, ravishing the space that they occupy, while delicately floating in her extravagant underwater world. “I imagined living in Paris during the1920s as a performer, with no possessions except for your talent and art, and how free, yet desperate, that would be,” she says.

About The Artist: Christy Lee Rogers

Christy Lee Rogers is a visual artist from Kailua, Hawaii. Her obsession with water as a medium for breaking the conventions of contemporary photography has led to her work being compared to Baroque painting masters like Caravaggio. Boisterous in colour and complexity, Rogers applies her cunning technique to a barrage of bodies submerged in water during the night, and creates her effects naturally in-camera using the refraction of light. Through a fragile process of experimentation, she builds elaborate scenes of coalesced colours and entangled bodies that exalt the human character as one of vigour and warmth, while also capturing the beauty and vulnerability of the tragic experience that is the human condition.

Rogers’ works have been exhibited throughout the US and Europe and are held in private and public collections throughout the world. She has been featured in International Magazines, including Harper’s Bazaar Art China, Eyemazing, The Independent, Casa Vogue, Photo Professional and others. Rogers’ work Reckless Unbound is currently housed at Longleat in the UK; the stately home which is the seat of the Marquesses of Bath and also home to Renaissance gems of the Italian masters, like Titan’s Rest on the Flight into Egypt.

Christy Lee Rogers
June 4, 2014