Exploring the Edge: Seascapes by Katherine Westerman

Exploring the Edge: Seascapes by Katherine Westerman

Born into a family of artists and writers, Katherine Westerman's appreciation for the expressive medium of photography started when she was eight years old.. For her, large bodies of water are as mysterious as they are beautiful; and are as dangerous as they are alluring. Water is precious and magical. Exploring the Edge is Westerman's photographic metaphor for human interconnectedness to the environment and by extension our relationship to each other.

The water covers seventy-two percent of the Earth and provides half of the world's oxygen–it is the planet's life-support system. Seas and oceans are paradoxical complexities of immense power and strength while also being delicate, vulnerable, and fragile. A healthier ocean means a healthier planet. Through Exploring the Edge, Westerman draws comparisons to our threatened ecology and human existence on the planet. For the health and care of our environment, Westerman believes that our relationship to the sea and oceans mirror the kind of nurturing and benevolent relations we have with close friends and family. The thirteenth-century Persian poet and Sufi mystic Rumi expresses Westerman's sentiment in his belief thatwe are not a drop in the ocean but an entire ocean in a drop. For Westerman, each of these photographs represents a person who embodies this aesthetic. Her images draw on the visual language of metaphor and explore the relationship between humanity and nature.

Los Angeles-based photographer Katherine Westerman was born in New York City and was raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, experiencing her summers in Del Mar, California.  She earned a Bachelors degree from University of California, Los Angeles and a MFA from the Academy of Art University (formerly Academy of Art Collage) in San Francisco.

Photography is not permitted.
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