Exhibition Review: Roe Etheridge's Beach Umbrellas
ROE ETHRIDGE, Beach Umbrella with Cup and Flip Flops, 2020. Dye sublimation print on aluminum
40 x 53 in 101.6 x 134.6 cm Edition of 5 + 2 AP © Roe Ethridge Courtesy Gagosian
Written by: Jan Alex
Everyone loves the beach, but it’s not always as glamorous as we expect. Maybe it was the cigarette butts in the sand or the un-justifiable price-tag of an umbrella that blew away at the first gust of wind. In Roe Etheridge’s newest collection of photographs, “Beach Umbrellas”, he toys with this universal and imperfect fantasy, applying his creative techniques and sharp editorial eye to complicate our idealization of a day at the beach.
Shot over the course of several summer days, the photographs make the discarded beach umbrellas of Rockaway Beach their focus. Equally candid and theatrical, the images are dominated by the colorful canopies of umbrellas. Positioned against the sun, shot from the ground, and cropped to dominate the frame, the umbrellas take on an abstract quality. Filling the images with vibrant color, the umbrellas fabric becomes luminous as it absorbs the sun.
ROE ETHRIDGE, Blue and White Umbrella, 2020. Dye sublimation print on aluminum
40 x 60 in 101.6 x 152.4 cm Edition of + 2 AP © Roe Ethridge Courtesy Gagosian
Both familiar and unexpected, the images are simultaneously commercial and abstract, walking the line between stock imagery and unorthodox technique. Subtle contradictions and complications abound. In one image, a rainbow striped umbrella (price tag still attached) glows idyllically in the sun while casting a protective shadow over a volleyball and a discarded pack of cigarettes. In another, a wilted sunflower droops lifeless against a pristine blue sky.
The images also showcase Etheridge’s experiments with unorthodox techniques. In Beach Umbrella With Cup and Flip Flops, he digitally superimposes multiple images on top of one another: a fallen, sand covered blue cup and a pair of cheap blue flip flops seemingly sink into the fabric of a palm-tree patterned umbrella. The result is both mundane and strikingly surreal, a bundle of familiar inter-related elements, melded into a cohesive image that blurs the lines between realism and abstraction.
ROE ETHRIDGE, Rainbow Beach Umbrella with Flip Flops, 2020. Dye sublimation print on aluminum. 60 x 40 in 152.4 x 101.6 cm Edition of 5 + 2 AP © Roe Ethridge Courtesy Gagosian
In the project’s sole portrait, Meryl with Beach Umbrella, Etheridge further plays with the idealizations and assumptions that are often conflated with a beach going summer. In the photograph, a fair-skinned, red-haired model stands at the ready for a day at the beach, clad in a bright red fur coat, umbrella slung over her shoulder. It’s a playful contradiction to the bronzed-skin, blonde-haired beach goer of a summer commercial or Hollywood film and the seasonally inappropriate fur coat almost distracts the eye from the model’s nose, which is covered in bright-pink zinc sunscreen.
Playful, evocative, and colorful, “Beach Umbrellas” is a creative testament to the artists technical skill and the “semi-apocalyptic vibe” he found during his pandemic beach excursions.
Roe Etheridge’s “Beach Umbrellas” is on display until August 27th at the Gagosian Gallery’s 75th and Park gallery and online.
