by Sarah Cahill

A young boy sits in a small weathered boat, its peeling green paint echoed by the clear turquoise watery expanse that fills the photograph. Two capoeira players, a teacher and student, one dreadlocked and dark brown, the other a light taupe, strike unbelievably graceful poses, holding hands as they stand upside down, balancing on one hand each. These are two of thirty-three photographs you can see this weekend, and through March, by Oakland artist David Whitman, who in recent travels has captured what he calls “Brazilianness”: the tropical colors, the gestures, the unposed stances on the street and beach that reveal the essence of the country.

“Bahia: Figurative Imagery,” which opens Saturday, March 2, at 2:00 p.m. at the 60th Street Gallery in Oakland, celebrates Brazilianness not only through Whitman’s intoxicating photographs but also in the watercolors of well-known Oakland painter Karen Frey. Winner of numerous awards and a Signature Member of the National Watercolor Society, Frey has been Whitman’s painting teacher since they met through Pro Arts Open Studios in 1986. In “Bahia,” Frey has responded to Whitman’s photos, not reproducing them photorealistically but creating visions of light and color that evoke the same warmth and beauty and compassion. While the subject of this show is Brazil, it also speaks to the reciprocal relationship between painting and photography, and between two artists who have added a dimension to their friendship by responding to each other’s work.

Presentiment of the exotic

“Brazil has always seemed familiar to me,” says Whitman. “I’ve always loved Brazilian music and the lyrical sound of Brazilian Portuguese. The film Black Orpheus gave me my first visual impressions of Brazil and the presentiment that here was an exotic, fascinating, pulsating, irresistible world. In Brazil there is a samba refrain ‘não existe pecado ao sul do equador’ [‘sin doesn’t exist south of the equator’]. Destiny called.”

Whitman first traveled to Brazil in 1991, purchasing a camera for the trip. Tragically, all his photographs were destroyed, along with his house and possessions, in the Oakland hills fire. One of the photographs from his next trip was chosen from 20,000 submissions in National Geographic Traveler’s amateur photography competition. Last June he celebrated his fortieth birthday by spending two months in Brazil with his camera. He returned with 2,000 photos, most taken in the northeastern state of Bahia, and sent copies to everyone he had photographed. One man wrote back: “I was very happy when I received your photos. It was emotion for me. You don’t get to think how we was surprise. You are my friend and brother forever.”

Brazilian moments

The Brazilian residents’ acceptance of Whitman, who often took photographs in small towns and remote villages, comes through in the ease and unselfconscioness they convey in these pictures. Whitman attributes to Frey his interest in capturing “the moment,” of recognizing an image and spontaneously reproducing it. Frey has often worked from photographs she takes, but says what really interests her is “a perfect light or a moment that I want to paint. I’m interested in balance of color and shape and value. It’s about developing relationships: textures, colors, rhythms.”

East Bay Express, March 1, 1996