PICTURE THIS
David Maisel’s photographs give geographic shape to ideas, but never look like mere things. No wonder they’ve inspired at least one novelist
When I’m stuck in my writing, I’ll hop on my bike and pedal furiously, rocketing past streetcars to swerve onto side roads that take me to an art gallery.
I open the doors. The sound is tremendously silent.
It’s no wonder, then, that my latest book, Sophrosyne, includes a chapter set at an art exhibit.
The novel follows a seriously screwed up 21-year-old student named Alex. He’s a philosophy major who’s decided to write his thesis on “sophrosyne,” a seminal Socratic virtue that’s often (inadequately) translated as “selfcontrol.” Alex’s thoughts pulse with urgency, his inquiry driven by loss and longing — namely, by his need to understand his relationship to his seductive mother, a belly-dancer whose stage name is Sophrosyne.
In this way, personal motive and abstract ideas swirl inside each other, given expression through language that’s idiosyncratic and oddly rhythmic. I wanted Sophrosyne to render ideas as bodies, as desire, contained within characters. I’d use the allure of language to lead the reader toward pressing questions: How do we define ourselves in a radically altered world — one in which God is absent, technology is omnipresent and the global environment is in collapse? And how can “selfrestraint” help us understand ourselves, let alone the broader social forces around us?
No wonder I was having trouble ….
After months of writing thousands and thousands of useless words — grains of sand I pushed across the page — I got on my bike and I went to an art gallery.
Sometimes the answer is staring us right in the eye. Too bad we need to torture ourselves before we can see it.
When I got off my bike that October day, two years ago now, I saw my answer: Alex needed to attend a museum, where he’d meet a woman. Specifically, they’d meet while immersed in the haunting, luscious images of contemporary photographer David Maisel.
Maisel represents a trend in the art world, away from postmodernism toward an embrace of the “terrible sublime.” Based in L.A., he’s created a body of work that’s varied in subject, though all his photos seem to question the meaning of humanity in relation to nature, technology, history, progress.
At first, Maisel’s images feel like abstractions; I approach their colours and contours, unsure of the object that Maisel has captured. Certainly, these photos portray a thing — an object existent in reality — but what I see is a saturation of sensation, a richness that seems almost geographic. Which is exactly what it is. In several series, Maisel takes photos from airplanes, depicting a unique perspective on earth: its toxic tailings ponds, clear-cut forests, open-pit mines. He shows a landscape scarred by mankind’s technological prowess — our mastery over nature — even as we fail to control our human appetites.
We’ve heard this theme chimed many times in recent years. We’ve heard it so much, in fact, that we don’t know how to receive it.
And that’s the power of Maisel’s work: he portrays our contemporary horror, but he does so with a keen attunement to beauty. His photos are not di- dactic or ironic; instead, Maisel creates a space where we can stand, in stillness, and absorb the thrumming significance of his images. We need this beauty to soothe us — not to numb us to the reality around us, but to act as a balm that calms the everpresent buzz of stimuli, the electrical information that frazzles our thoughts, demanding a reaction, urging us out of ourselves and our quiet reflection on our response to the world outside.
Through Maisel, I was able to push forward with my novel. Within the sensually heightened space of the gallery, Maisel’s artwork created a medium where my characters could finally connect. My language could be descriptive — the green of a photo, her hand in her hair — but also extend to the noumenal realm. With his lens, Maisel asks vibrant, vital questions about the human condition in our era; through my words, I offer a response: “the photo depicts a mine in Nevada. An aerial photo of minerals pooling. And the colours are coursing, approaching the green. Because they outline, internal, like the veins on a leaf or the roots of a tree, and they’re filling with sweetness. Sugars, or blood, and they’re breathing.”
I’m back at my desk now, pen in hand. I’m thankful for artists like Maisel — for the ongoing, ever-changing conversation to which I might add my small voice.