Weekend Portfolio: Stefan Jennings Batista

Searching for Water

The desert and ocean exist as one in the same in a sense, both seemingly endless and empty subliminal expanses. We are deeply captivated, even drawn to be confronted and dwarfed by their vast immensity, to gain perspective, to find truth or solace, to see death, to define our humanity. Having grown up by the sea, my childhood experience with the ocean has instilled in me a fascination with the expanse and driven my search for idealized oases.

“Searching for Water” is a photographic record that chronicles over three years of my life in transition after leaving the gulf coast for the American Southwest. While the title implies a pursuit of water in a literal sense, the photographs also use it as a metaphor to explore deeper visual themes of a tenuous American idealism amidst the isolation and emptiness of a strange and often desiccated western landscape.

To view more of Stefan’s work, visit his website here.