Review

"Svegn-G-Englar," Photographic Print.

M.A. Alford
Ethereal Waters: An Underwater Series

11 a.m.-4 p.m.

Beggars Table Church & Gallery
2009 Baltimore
Kansas City, MO
913.558.9039 

Hours: 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Wednesday-Friday, Saturdays by appointment and First Friday openings.
Runs through: Aug. 31. 

Artist's site: http://www.maalford.com
Gallery site: http://www.beggarstablechurch.org 

Normally, when you see people under water in a church setting, there's a baptism going on.

That's not the case with M.A. Alford's photographic series Ethereal Waters, which is in the middle of a two-month run at Beggars Table Church & Gallery in the Crossroads.

In Alford's artistic world, well-dressed people read, dance and even sleep — as in Svegn-G-Englar, today's featured image — beneath the surface of a swimming pool (or barely break its surface, as in one particularly haunting shot). They don't appear to be uncomfortable in their surroundings, though: Their hair and clothes drift weightlessly, but there's no sense of straining for breath or even holding it.

(That's a testament both to Alford's timing and his models' composure. One bubble, one flailing limb, and the moments would be broken.)

Humans are such interesting creatures, writes Alford, who graduated from Lee's Summit North High School this past May and is headed to Pepperdine University this fall. They are beautiful and paradoxical, yet mischievous and mysterious.

Ethereal Waters certainly fits that statement. It's playful and lovely, sensual and meditative, serene and surreal — and not at all out of place in its sacred surroundings. There's a purity to Alford's work, an underlying innocence that verges on ... well, on the ethereal.

We are, after all, watery creatures. Water figures prominently in both our biological life cycles — everything from gestation to hydration — and in the stories of rebirth and deliverance into new life, be that literal or figurative.

 There is so little that we know about ourselves, Alford writes, and I try to delve into the subconscious and explore what cannot be evaded to further understand what we are, why we are here, and how.

Ethereal Waters won't answer all those haunting questions ... but it is a beautiful, thought-provoking and thoughtful exploration by a promising young artist.

Come on in. The water's more than fine.

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