Wavelength continues my sideway celebration of renegade subcultures, which wave some through the door while building barriers of entry for others. Each piece in this series puts the act of surfing in stasis—still moments of cool athleticism—while also inhabiting the headspace of a surfer: aloof, alive, and apart from the world. While much of the imagery in this series depicts a devil-may-care culture where the only cost of admission is a love to surf, I’m also interested in the bro tropes that persist from Frankie Avalon’s beach movies to any modern-day surf shop. Inspired by monochromatic oceanscapes, many works in this series limit the color in the composition: appropriate for surfers dwarfed by the monolithic body in which they swim. I layered muted and aged paper to create a vintage look reminiscent of surfing’s heyday, as well as to mimic the altered state a surfer experiences in search of the next great wave.
