When does beach season start? Whenever you want it to. For us New Yorkers, that’s pretty much now. Boardwalks, sand fleas, sunburns, slightly smushed deli sandwiches and lemonade (or rosĂ©), drippy sunscreen—and then the WATER. That first dip in the ocean each season is magical. The shocking cold and heavenly salt that leaves your body tingling from head to toe; you emerge face pointed to the sky, seaweed on your shoulder, and bathing suit slightly askew.Â
To visit the beach is both a universal experience and a personal one: everyone who’s been has their own particular associations and memories. They’re typically quite visceral ones, fed by the ocean’s immense power, and often colored by the nostalgia of childhood. Nearly without exception, the sea fosters passionate emotion of some kind (even when it’s fear).
Long-time 20x200 artist Christian Chaize has studied the ocean—and specifically, one stretch of coastline in Portugal—for years. His unusual use of a portrait format to capture this landscape draws the viewer deep into the image, guided by craggy rock outcroppings on either side of the frame that give the photographs’ subjects unique crevices to explore as the tide wanes. This remote beach facilitates an ongoing conversation between Chaize and the beachgoers (although they might not know it) and the sea. This interchange will be revisited and reimagined for as long as the beach exists, and always commanded by the big briny blue. We are just visitors.
