Outside shot

The West Coast is photographer Chris Bratt's inspiration

by Leon Nigrosh

REFLECTIONS: COLOR PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRIS BRATT At the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, 55 Lake Avenue North, through August 26.

American watercolorist John Marin (1870-1953) wrote that "the true artist must perforce go from time to time to the elemental big forms -- Sky, Sea, Mountain, Plain -- and those things pertaining thereto, to sort of re-true himself up, to recharge the battery." To escape the rigors of home remodeling, California photographer Chris Bratt does just that, and he brings east for the first time more than 40 photographs.

Bratt's interest in nature extends beyond mere appreciation. With a degree in marine biology, he has an intimate understanding of undersea life -- which can be seen in several of his large format hand-printed color photographs currently on display in the UMass Medical Center lobby. In his "Ocean" grouping, Bratt's Sea Anemone and Sea Anemone and Urchins bring us so close to his subjects that we can see the spiral design, interlacing forms, and graceful curves inherent in these brilliantly colored creatures.

Bratt also brings his innate familiarity with nature to images above the waterline. His 20X30 inch Green Sea, with its vast, flat expanse of sea green color extending outward to a pale watercolor wash horizon, looks like a painting by English romantic Joseph Turner (1775-1851) before he put in the boats. With Seagulls and Breaking Waves, it is as if Bratt posed each of the birds. The black silhouettes are arranged along the orange beach in four asymmetrical clusters. Several singles in back tie the foreground composition together with the distant crashing purple waves. A serendipitous lone flyer in the upper right acts as an exclamation point. Only someone attuned to the eccentric rhythms of nature could have caught this moment intact.

Mountains and streams dominate the "Wilderness" section of the exhibit, with El Capitan by Moonlight towering over all. Look long enough and a ghostly figure appears on the face of this slick, majestic rock. Rocks at Sunset, photographed at Joshua Tree National Monument, shows an astounding splash of orange/yellow sunlight painted across jagged, striated rock formations in front of a purple-blue evening sky. Shadow play adds great depth to the image that crackles in the crystal clear air. In contrast, Point Reyes Surf appears much like a soft-focus Japanese brush painting with its rocky formations seemingly floating in a watery mist.

Bratt's work becomes more Expressionistic with his series of mountain waterways. In each of these images the rush of rippling water creates curving slices of transparent color, yellows and greens in Mountain Stream Abstract #2, or gold and silver in Mountain Stream Abstract #6. The pictures are more than mere representations of gurgling streams; instead they begin to get to the core of Bratt's subject, both literally and figuratively. Whereas it is the movements of the artist that create an abstract painting pattern, here the composition is produced by the motions of the subject.

When Bratt brings his lens up close to flowers, his work reaches its most abstract. His Daisies, shot from below, become delicate, transparent strips of white against a field of pale blue. Dark Flower is a pulsating swirl of saturated colors, blood red on purple. His Flower Forms is a total blur of yellow interacting with intense red and purple shadows. The only hint that the image might indeed be a flower is a single, soft, curved green line that could be construed as a stem. The main attraction in these alluring works is the rich, deep, and varied color that only nature can provide.

Aside from two photos of tiny California ice crystals and ice patterns, Bratt's "Winter" pictures are not very engaging. The fact that the snow covered trees were photographed during quick visits to New England may account for the lack of intimacy that permeates virtually all of his other outstanding images.

If you cannot get to the West Coast to see the sky, sea, mountains, and plains in person, than you can at least enjoy these views through Chris Bratt's evocative and enchanting color photographs.

The lobby gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily. Call 856-2000.