Renate Aller’s photographs explore our relationship of desire with nature. Osprey #1, one of three images that constitute the Raptors series, captures a sea hawk poised for action in a fleeting, but iconic moment. Aller’s work makes us aware of our futile desire to arrest nature in one specific moment. By capturing birds, deserts, or oceans, for example, Aller marks the distance between our desire to draw meaning from a frozen instant and the eternity within which that instant is inscribed.
Aller’s works are held in numerous international collections, such as The Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven; the George Eastman House, Rochester, New York; and Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany; and the Corcoran Gallery of Art Washington, DC.
Artist's Studio
About Renate Aller
The photographer Renate Aller focuses primarily on portraiture and landscape. She is best known for expansive, poetic images that visually unite two ostensibly different environments—the ocean and the desert. Her luminous yet quiet landscapes embody the qualities of classical portraiture, with the ocean or desert replacing the human subject. In the series “Oceanscapes—One View,” Aller photographed the Atlantic Ocean from the same vantage point on the east end of Long Island over the course of ten years. Although the point of view remains static, the seascape ebbs and flows, imbuing the subject with anthropomorphic moods and revealing a natural dynamism that would otherwise go unnoticed.
