Summer on the Skokomish
2010
Oregon-based photographer Steve Davis appropriates cues from 19th-century landscape painting, including the pastoral and sublime. He borrows this language, yet introduces an element that imparts a broader knowledge of how nature and the individual coexist. Here, Davis photographed adults and children swimming in the Skokomish River while smoke billows in the distance from a wildfire, which erupted in the Olympic National Park near Shelton, Washington in August 2010. We most often think of the devastating destruction caused by raging forest fires, but these fires can support the creation of diverse habitats within a park. They are considered a natural process that helps maintain the ecosystem by releasing nutrients that encourage plant growth.
Archival inkjet print
image size: 27 x 34 in. (68.6 x 86.4 cm), sheet size: 29 x 36 in. (73.7 x 91.4 cm)
Purchased with funds from Clinton T. Willour and an anonymous donor
2011.18
Provenance: The artist; [James Harris Gallery, Seattle, Washington]; purchased by Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 2011
Courtesy of the artist
