"Fire! Colorado Under Siege" Denver Photo Art Gallery

            At the Denver Photo Art Gallery, the current exhibit, entitled “Fire! Colorado Under Siege,” depicts photographs from several artists as a benefit for the Colorado Fallen Firefighters Foundation. Photographers Aaron Ontiveroz, Richard Saxon, Steve Smith and John Wark successfully capture the emotional devastation resulting from the fires that swept Colorado. The collection of photographs details the sheer magnitude of force to the cultural impact to the heroic actions involved in combating the Colorado inferno.

            Three photos in particular create stark juxtaposition between the enormity of nature and the frailty of the human condition. Some people experience this realization in the mountains, sleeping outside, seeing the innumerable stars for the first time outside of a city and realizing just how little space the individual occupies. I experience the humbling reality at the top of a fourteener, looking across the Colorado landscape and acknowledging just how small I am. Others may find the notion at the bottom of a redwood tree or at the edge of the ocean. Regardless of the details, the contrast between one small individual and the whole of creation is a sobering and grounding reminder. In moments of solace and serenity, the notion fails to evoke the same sense of gratitude as in moments of catastrophe. When vast forces confront the existence of life, I realize I am ephemeral. I say this not to brew anxiety or create a morbid tone, but to depict how this truth evokes a deep, inexplicable gratefulness for life. Ultimately, nothing fully evokes this emotion except for the actual experience; however, Aaron Ontiveroz, Steve Smith and John Wark capture this moment of insight to the greatest capability of a lens.

             Ontiveroz captures an anonymous boy staring up as the smoke envelopes the Poudre Canyon outside of Fort Collins this past June. Smith depicts a frame of smoke, billowing into the sky, interjected at the bottom of the image with two small firefighters lingering on a ledge. Wark, looking down on a forest of evergreens, finds a helicopter spiraling through endless acres of smoke, attempting to restrain the uncontrollable force. The child, the firefighters and the helicopter pilots remain intentionally anonymous so that the audience is present; I’m his babysitter; I’m their coworker; I’m his copilot. The flames are incinerating my neighborhood, the ash is suffocating my lungs, the smoke is blinding my view. Capturing the natural calamity, each artist conveys a sobering reminder of this transitory life.

            Although the body of work centers on images of smoke, the remainder of the photographs augment the three pieces previously addressed by illuminating various impacts of the fire. Yes, the subject material is consistent and at times repetitive, but the emotional kindling evoked throughout the exhibit results in a posture of cathartic reflection on exiting the gallery.