Stretching Surfaces

As a visual geographer, I map an area through symbolic images, investigating its identity and mythology. I have returned many times over the years to Manoa Stream, in Honolulu, Hawaii. The stream drops down from the tropical rainforest below the Koolau Mountains and traverses the broad, and historically significant, Manoa Valley. Today, houses cover much of the valley - what was once rich farmland supporting taro cultivation and, later, rice. Almost unnoticed, Manoa Stream slides along behind the back yards, on the edges of the human settlement.

Here, the distinct shadows that emerge from the greater darkness, the tree branches that arch out to catch our eye, the volcanic stones that now lie exposed, the sun’s rays that move across the valley to highlight and then bury event after event, and the water itself, continually passing, expanding and contracting, its level and speed changing day by day - all of these play their part in the ongoing drama. They create shifting forms that catch reflections from our mind, portents or omens that reveal vistas into buried paths of thought. I use my camera to explore and chart the various layers of strata in this shifting world, seeking to release the sacred from the secular.

In Chicago, I photographed in the Wooded Island part of Jackson Park, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted in the late nineteenth-century. He intended to build a natural area incorporating "the elements of mystery through effects of aerial perspective, and the complicated play of light and shadow and of reflected tints in extended composition" (1893). He desired to create effects "like that of music, which is of a kind that goes back of thought, and cannot be fully given the form of words," (1880) in order to influence the imagination of viewers.

I found this landscape conducive to my own interests. I looked for situations where I could understand its more emblematic character, a surreal world grounded in the subconscious mind. I worked particularly along the edges of the days where the sun, so extreme in its angles, lay stress over the landscape, extending or shrinking the shadows. I set out fields of interpretation, seeking to encompass what I saw in calligraphic forms.

Peter Fendrick

Photos by SU Teacher Poetic, Rich in Symbolism

Peter Fendrick, who teaches in the Syracuse University Writing Program, is also a photographer and frequently joins image to text.

An exhibition of his black-and-white silver gelatin photographs called Stretching Surfaces is on view through June 30.

Taken over the course of several years in Chicago, Illinois and Manoa Valley, Hawaii, the photographs are brooding and rich in symbolism; their titles are like condensed poems.

Many are strongly calligraphic, such as Ley Lines and You who must make choices, which were shot in Jackson Park, Chicago. Silhouetted branches thrust across the surface while in the background light shimmers over wet rock or snow.

Pretense and Exile taken in Hawaii, is a dramatic images with dark rocks creating a massive diagonal barrier between the ripples of sand in the foreground and the wind-swept spume above. A delicate sprig with one leaf is caught at the shadowy water’s edge.

In Weight at Night, lines of deep black work their way into the sparkling flat rock face: light plays over a phallic leaf or pod that lies in a crevice just its size, and catches a similarly shaped finger of rock behind it.

One of my favorites is In Time, We are Lost to the Sky, with its floating rock circle, its beam of reflected light. Small plants grow in the foreground through water so still that their stems are equally defined above and below the water line.

The best of Fendrick’s photographs, with their close-ups of rocks and branches creating context-less yet associative abstractions, brings the work of Aaron Siskind and Minor White to Mind.

Sherry Chayat
Syracuse Herald American Stars, May 26, 1996, p. 12.

Percolating: Fendrick Exhibit

Stretching Surfaces blends Peter Fendrick’s interests in photography, topography and poetry. It offers black-and-white photographs taken in Chicago’s Jackson Park and Manoa Valley, Hawaii, as well as text, such as the poem “Why his Trouble to Cut the Hair?”

In keeping with the title of the exhibition, the artist doesn’t serve ideas and themes overtly; he relies on suggestion and inference. The photos taken at Jackson Park, for example, present images of a discarded tire floating in water, of a long branch dipping into water, of roots breaking through concrete, and of the ground itself in the piece titled Our Memory continues to Disappear. These images, taken over several years, document the park’s landscape, but that’s only the beginning, because the artist is trying to make other connections. Our Memory continues to Disappear, for instance, deals with the transience of all life on this planet. This comes not through any gimmicks, but through photographing an ordinary scene and approaching it in a different context.

Fendrick’s images of Manoa Valley, Hawaii, meanwhile, capture the beauty of that area’s landscape, but again that’s only one aspect of their dialog with the viewer. Photos such as They came without warning and Pretense and exile are not conveying a sense of paradise; they are communicating physical and spiritual turbulence. The mood isn’t one of harmony, but impending chaos. Moreover, in Under the Eye of the Clock, the photographer is working not just with the overall scene, but also with a lone bottle. That’s a small aspect of the overall photo, but it achieves a disproportionate influence as the only sign of humanity on the landscape. Inevitably, the viewer’s eye is drawn to the bottle.

In these and other photos, Fendrick is both presenting his images and inviting us to join him on a journey, in a different way of looking at our surroundings. That’s a fairly loose package that may not appeal to those who appreciate a more straightforward presentation. On the other hand, Stretching Surfaces is not abstruse; the artist is working with a visual shorthand, and he presents enough clues to orient viewers toward his perspective. On that basis, the exhibit succeeds very well.

Carl Mellor
Syracuse New Times, June 19, 1996, p. 13.

Surreal in Feeling

Peter Fendrick’s black and white photographs are surreal in feeling. Incantations of Conjecture brings Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 monolith to mind. The individual features of the picture are irrelevant. You don’t really know what you are looking at but you look because it is captivating and mysterious. What is it? Where is it? How is it?

Nancy Ungar
Bethesda Gazette, August 18, 1999, B-11.

Barefoot in the Mountains: An Interview with Peter Fendrick
Translated from Farsi by Sohaila

Peter Fendrick is one of the brightest and most talented American photographers today. He is working in black and white photography and is associated with the University of Hawaii. Peter received his BA in Literature and Philosophy from Yale University and his Master’s in Geography from the University of Hawaii. He started in photography when taking photographs on his trips. He has visited such places as Canada, Mexico, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, France, Japan, China, Thailand, India, Nepal, Tahiti and New Zealand. That was the beginning of his fever when he began thinking of photography as a serious endeavor. During this time, he mostly taught himself and perfected his style and technique. His photographs have been shown in many parts of America and he has won many awards.

“I found photography during the times of the rising and setting sun. Dawn and dusk are different countries but the tension of the pulling light is highest at these times. I have gone barefoot into the mountains trying to find out what the real truth of life is.”

His trip to Japan had a great effect on him. He was there for 6 months and he learned about the philosophy of Zen in the monastery of Hoshin-ji. He became close to nature there.

“I found nature in a different way. I found a different phase of it. I constantly ask myself what is the meaning of life and how is the relationship between humans and the environment. I searched this answer over and over from one country to another. I try to use my camera and my subject matter to answer this question.”

“I was in the roads and mountains of China, India and Nepal for a year and a half, and I was trying to find the answer to this question and as I was traveling and trying to figuring out what I was doing, my photography shaped itself too, changing as I was, taking different types of forms, often without my becoming aware of it. Perhaps without knowing what I was doing, somehow the theme overlapped my photography. That was the focal point.”

After this travel, Peter went to get his Master’s Degree and to perfect his technique in photography.

“The classes taught me a lot about technique. The technique in photography is very similar to the grammar in writing. They have a similar parallels to each other. And without the tool of grammar you will not know the language and without the technical knowledge you will not know how to go about photography.”

“There were times when my pictures went beyond the beauty in itself. There were deeper meaning in them. The objects in my photography began to have spirits, and I was trying to figure out if there was a relationship between the matter itself and the spirit.”

He is also a poet and sometimes he puts his poems next to his pictures and this relationship between the two may help the audience understand what he is trying to say.

In 1978, 1982, and 1985 Peter traveled to Alaska to work and observe the local scene. His photographs explored the Alaskan life and scenery and were shown at the University of Hawaii.

“When I traveled to Alaska I never left my camera; we were always together. When you travel, subject matter can come suddenly to you and I would have wanted to snap it right away. The photograph has its deepest meaning at the moment where I felt it needed to be taken. I was living in the moment, the moment was very important, psychologically, in my heart.”

“A hunter looking for his prey in nature and a photographer with his camera are similar.”

“The moment at which you snap the camera has to do with your psyche at work. If you are under stress it will eventually show on your film.”

There are some similarities between Peter’s work and that of Aaron Siskind. “Siskind’s work really moves the heart and I have been greatly influenced by his technique.”

“Sometimes when I take pictures of shadows I get this creepy feeling, as if there is something there. I feel as if the entities in these shadows are so powerful that I am going to choke. They are quite powerful, infinite and strange.”

“And the play of shadows and light can come into forms as infinite light that dissolves me within itself. One element of these shadows that might manifest in my photographs is that they come as life, but they also come like darkness that comes from the bottom of the well and is like mystery.”

Peter was asked about his photography in different countries. He compared them to the different types of music from all over the world which he loves. “I have to spend some time to understand all these things. Sometimes I understand faster and some slower. There is a relationship between a good piece of music and a photograph in that they both have harmony. As much as a good piece of music can affect you, steal your heart, so can a photograph.”

Mohammad Nikou, Reporting from America.
AKS Photograph Magazine, Tehran, Iran, Oct. 1992
Translated from Farsi by Sohaila. Oct. 1992

Other Comments

Love those titles.  Remind me of de Chirico's titles a bit.  Metaphysical/abstract.  And they also seem like his stuff in a way.  Do you like him/his paintings?  I'd like to see a print of them, especially the Incantations of Conjecture.  There’s a nice feeling in that.  Something pulls me into it.  Perhaps the gradually stretched landscape. 

James W.

I saw your photos at Art-O-Matic, and I was moved. Beautiful selections.

Steve J.

Wonderful commentary. I pray you find a market for your eloquent, impressive work. Excellent message, combined with respect and beauty.

Kristy S.

Way cool.

Anna

Beautiful work - hope to see/read more.

Rita E.

The silence of colour is noted here, the space the universe creates for you to step into. And once we were children ourselves, and once we, too, hung from the skies.

And again, it was dark.

Kate L.

Gorgeous work and beautiful catalog.

Mika

Very nice work!!

Hernandez

Beautiful photos. Beautiful titles.

Ellen

Hey thanks, especially for You who must make choices, Breaking my Silent Face and In time, we are lost to the sky.

Mika

Impressive beautiful work - your titles are small poems.

Jean M.

I like this work, graphically very strong.

Barbara H.

Beautiful work.

Pat G.

Wonderful!

Beata K.

Pure visual poetry. Thank you.

Jim

Like not knowing at first what we’re seeing.

Anonymous