Robert Palumbo's elegiac photographs of the scarred and receding glaciers of Alaska, taken from the air and from the ice itself, capture the majesty of the massive frozen forms. But look beyond the beauty into the human-caused damage that appears like scar tissue. Black streaks of carbon etched onto the white like graffiti. Rivers and lakes of electric blue meltwater formed at the juncture of ice and earth. Acclaimed poet Marcella Durand's poem, "shadows of glaciers", accompanies the photographs with an emotional curiosity that reads like a love letter to the glaciers, and to the earth itself. The contrast between Durand's intimate, personal poem and the colossal formations of ice in distress creates a seductive but uneasy tension. Palumbo's images become poetic emulations of human skin and bone, and eternal rivers, forever flowing through the ages. forging a deep connection between the ancient soul of the earth and our physical and emotional selves.
Exhibits:
2021 Davis Orton Gallery Hudson, New York
2022 Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA
Book design: Marc Cozza
Purchase shadow of glaciers