Alex Sher's Reflections Series [Artwork Descriptions]

In the speckled darkness of his waters, the nude feminine body becomes a beacon, a flash, a sensual streak of light. Just as his camera captures the fleeting moment of these chaotic reflections, the image that remains illuminates the transient nature of time itself.

In a delicate smear of faded blues intermingled with the curves and lines of the pale colors of the skin, Alex Sher’s “Brushstroke” uncovers his phenomenal ability to capture the transient brushstrokes of nature.

Radiating with mythic sexuality, the mermaid’s topless body becomes fluid, her multiplying naked breasts and her scaly tail swirling into the hips of a real woman form a Möbius Stripe, a twisted surface caught into an infinite loop. This amazing natural distortion congeals into hearkening back to the surrealist fantasy of Salvador Dali.

In Alex Sher’s “Salsa” we are entranced in the spiraling movements of the topless dancer encased in vibrant reds and electric blues. The nude woman clutches the fabric to her body as she twirls. Feet upon feet, legs upon legs, we cannot help but recall the surrealist masters who captured their love of the sensual female nature into distorted shapes and forms. Caught in a split second of rapid motion, her body becomes a mirage.

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A passionate furious energy radiates in the ripples of red that overtake the reflection. Intense motion, stirring the water into an explosion of bubbles we encounter “The Trouble”. The model, the surface, and the movements take on lives of their own, clashing and conflicting before our eyes. The woman’s form melts and dissolves into the vibrant ribbons of color as if we have fallen into the surrealist dreams of Salvador Dalí. The arms, the face, the breasts, and the legs all begin to replicate until the singular nude female form becomes an unknown number of women. They stop, turn to us, and glare letting us know we are an unwelcome voyeur at this encounter.

From the dark, she rises. An eerie turquoise glow intermingles with the colors from the nude body of a woman, at least a part of a woman. Her breasts and arms breach the reflection’s surface transforming her into a series of lines and curves. Her nude form haunts us, immortalizing this ephemeral moment into a nightmarish scene by Salvador Dali’s rethinking of 80 renowned works of Francisco Goya. We cannot help but be enticed despite our fear.

A naked woman floats in space illuminated with shimmering stars and saturated swirling gasses of solar systems. Similar to the geometric eroticism of Picasso, with color fields and body parts intermingling in unforeseeable combinations, we are entranced as this provocative figure slinks through the darkness of the universe. In these shortlived moments, she is shielded from noise and gravity for as long as she can hold her breath.

“Bordeaux” reveals a gorgeous and haunting purple transformation of a naked body arms, breast, and legs into an amorphous shape, encapsulating the face of the woman. Pouring into the velvety darkness, the model elegantly plunges further and further underwater like the sexualization of portraiture by Picasso and his fellow Cubist masters. Just like a fine wine, the dark and sensual reds weaving throughout the features of the nude feminine form leave us with a bittersweet taste.

The nude girl of Sher’s “Siesta” drifts to sleep as her dreams encroach upon her. As her naked body begins to shimmer into an aqueous form of its own, the bubbles of air transform into orbs of light. Looming above, are the continuous reflections of the world mutating into a series of neon purples, lush greens, and bleeds of blues forming unknown patterns and organic shapes as if a surrealist fantasy collides with the remarkable abstraction of Picasso. Finding tranquility underwater, we dare not wake her from this peaceful nap.

Alex Sher engages his distinctive style and an unparalleled approach to underwater photography to expose the genocide of Ukrainians by Putin’s regime. The Ukrainian town of Vinnitsa became a site of meaningless execution of civilians by Russian military forces. For Sher, this bloody symbol of war and tragedy continues to resonate in the face of the other cities victimized in Ukraine, in Chechnya, in Georgia, in Syria, and even within Russia itself. The absurdity emerges in a surrealist form, like that of Dali or Breton. Fluid and evolving like a war-torn exquisite corpse. The nuclear threat humanity faces today manifests in an image of a nude feminine form imprisoned in a blazing bloody sea of red.

The serenity and beauty of these majestic creatures are mirrored in the calm and effortless pose of Sher’s underwater model, so still that the bubbles seem immune to her touch. Emerging from her cocoon in a feat of modern art that reminds the surrealist scenes and blue tones of René Magritte, Sher captures the fleeting emergence of the illusive white butterfly. Her naked feminine form gracefully extends as the pale blues and whites of the fabric transform into a set of delicate wings.