Bill Dewey: Delta
June 16 through August 20, 2023
Bill Dewey: Delta
Bill Dewey explores beauty, time, and space in this exhibition of large-format aerial photographs of the Colorado River Delta. These prints record Dewey's unique perspective of its spectacular transformation, season after season, decade after decade.
He distorts scale and subject by revealing ornamental motifs and textures unseen at ground level. He recasts miles of water, silt, and sand into tree branches, marbled surfaces, icy tundra, and alien landscapes, discovering poetry in this immersive and continuously changing earthwork.
Bill Dewey, Delta 2438, photograph, 35x52 in.
End of a River: Colorado River Delta
For thousands of centuries, the Colorado River has deposited silt carved out of our western desert landscape into the northern reaches of the Sea of Cortez in Baja California. Today the Colorado can no longer reach the sea because of dams, diversions, and drought, but Delta landscapes stand as a testament to the river's history.
When extreme tides, over 20 feet high in winter, occur in the upper gulf, flooding hundreds of miles of Colorado Delta plains, resultant colors and patterns echo the great landscapes of the desert Southwest.
Thirty years ago I began flying over the Delta once or twice a year, becoming increasingly fascinated with the changing forms I encountered. Recording and comparing these images from year to year, I could see change occurring in the Delta landscape. The effects of increasing human demand for fresh water meant flow was no longer enough to push the Colorado through silt banks and out into the Sea of Cortez.
Occasional floods or dam releases upstream briefly reverse this change as the channels temporarily come to life.
These photographs are homage to the beauty of a great river as it succumbs to the dynamic changes we are experiencing on our planet.
—Bill Dewey
