Topologies

With artful composition and rigorously controlled framing Edgar Martins creates sublimely beautiful views of often un-beautiful sites. Minimalist nighttime beaches, forests ravaged by drought-fueled fires, and Iceland's stark terrain have all served as subjects for his large-scale color photographs. He also explores the unexpected impact of modernism on the landscape, including startlingly graphic airport runways and colorful highway barriers in Portugal that read, at first glance, like abstract murals.

Certain themes recur throughout Martins's work. A sense of place and of alienation from place. A sense of mystery- vividly embodied by a woman with a bouguet of balloons on an absolutely deserted shore. And a sense that something unsettling has just happened or is about to happen-a fire, an accident, a close encounter with some unspecified danger, whether personal or globa. As John Beardsley notes, "Some images are what we habitually expect photography to be-evidence of the world as we think we know it-while others obscure their subjects through an illusionism that borders on magic."