Ann Rhoney: Ocean Blue

For the past fifty years, Ann Rhoney (b. 1953, Niagara Falls) has dedicated her artistic practice to the investigation of the mystery of light: how it shapes everything we see and feel, from the physical world around us to our most immediate emotions and deepest perceptions. Within light is the equally mysterious element of color, and both have long been the driving force in her art.

In the 1970s, as a young artist, Rhoney discovered that a camera was unable to capture the nuances of color seen by the human eye, as both color film and digital photography are limited in the color spectrum they can reproduce in an image. Frustrated, Rhoney learned how to paint her gelatin silver prints. By capturing light with her photographs and applying transparent paint to their surface, she fulfills photography’s promise of true luminosity, and reveals a dazzling spectrum of blues, greens, and pinks unattainable in traditional color photography. By combing the two mediums, her work creates the impression of a painting.

Rhoney’s exploration of the nature of light and color is manifested powerfully in her photographs of the ocean. The sky and water have no inherent colors of their own; rather, the light at each ephemeral moment in time creates the colors we perceive. As Rhoney explains, “Just as the water is a kind of blank canvas upon which the light acts to create color, so too is each print upon which I choose to paint, guided by my observation of the water and by my own inner sensibility as an artist.”