Nowhere is Magical Essay Review By Bob Killen The Exhibit’s Title – “Nowhere is Magical”— is both open and reserved, preparing the viewer not only for its subject matter but also for the atmosphere of intensity it contains. Here, through night places, art photographer and National Park Service Artist in Residence Evan Bracken speaks to us of the unseen, the difficulty of visual communication and the passage of night in the Mojave Desert. His Artists Statement, a poetic piece of several stanzas, laments the challenge of working in the Mojave National Preserve as each rock formation and sand whorl seemed to repeat themselves until he found a new light for old subjects. In the end, he presents 14-pigment on paper inkjet prints with an overall tone that meanders through a delicate unification of human warmth against the desert night’s bitter chill. Evan Bracken provides nocturnal details that disconnect us from the natural, delicate balance of landscape photography: common star trails arcing across an uncommon terrain, fissures of green alien light escapes volcanic lava tubes, distant horizons that remain— more distant. Each photograph functions as a poetic verse, with its own visual beat where the simplicity of the form follows the intricacy of an echoing and persistent night background. The exhibit possess a particular discipline as all of the photographs have a related visual dialogue, and yet each stands alone as an isolated work. They engage us in layers; the more you look, the more you see: as you notice faded horizons, sparkling green fusion from tunnel systems and new doorways to prickly starlight. The project developed through his search for differing gestures, different light, and time-based stratums. Yet, Bracken forces us to slow our thoughts, and let our eyes wander across the images in a fashion that is curious and at times tense, and thus we quickly learn that in the Mojave Desert, Nowhere is Magical. The Den of Kings On the first impression, the exhibit leaves room for the disciplined and temporarily deserted places that they depict. The Den of Kings (left & cover page) greets us with an immense rock formation; its height crashes into carefully sculpted star trails standing with all the authority of a temple entrance. In What Lies Beneath (right) we see fuzzy light beams streaming against impressionistic alien lights of green. Similarly, The Encounter (right) depicts an imagined other world 14 THE DESERT LIGHT | Jan/Feb 2018 What Lies Beneath Encounter