AGAVE 2004-present (ongoing)

These sturdy plants are gorgeous in the their natural, austere slate green, but I prefer the starkness of rendering them in contrasty black and white. The layers of textures of the pointy barbs and smooth skin embossed with the outlines of other leaves, combined with the mystery of shadows and bright sunny highlights makes exploring compositions very interesting. Rather than focusing on a specific subject, I was interested in balanced rhythms of tones and the tension between soft suppleness and the aggressive posture of the thorns. Foreground and background get compressed while the complexity of shapes resolves into a harmony of truncated repetition. This series was mostly taken in the Central Coast of California.