Ellen Salins

Global Warning

Inspired by: Winslow Homer, Gathering Berries Laura McPhee, The Blue Lagoon Harvey Sadow, Fire and Flood/Sacred Sites

photography on aluminum

22″ x 18″

2022-23

This Iceberg photo-collage is about the duality of a spectacular getaway experience combined with the inescapable knowledge that what is being seen is also part of our greatest existential threat. The ice-scapes were so beautiful and enjoyed in the way the people in the Winslow Homer are one with their surroundings that looked out to vistas that capture the popular imagination. The Laura McPhee location of the Blue Lagoon is again ‘quoted’ in this photo narrative here to be read as a final image, with the idea of imparting a feeling of warm water submersion, as a potential end result of our relationship with fossil fuel technology. There is color inspiration taken from Harvey Sadow’s ceramic with contrasting colors that represent fire and water, and in this photo piece, the warming sun and melting ice.