Meike J. Paniza: Between Land and Sky

Meike J. Paniza: Between Land and Sky by Aline SmithsonMarch 3, 2017

©Meike Paniza, Untitled (Shadow), from Between Land and Sea

In an era of sensory overload, where everyone is glued to a screen and turned away from the natural world, photographer Meike J. Paniza has created a visual narrative reminding us of the magic of light, time and inconsequential moments. Her project, Between Land and Sky, finds the beauty and the poetry in the ordinary. Meike has created 25 limited edition hand-made books of the Between Land and Sky series for her thesis presentation at SCAD.

Meike, born in Enkhuizen, The Netherlands, currently lives in Anchorage, Alaska. She studied Cinematography at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and Photography at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) where she is a Master of Fine Arts Photography Candidate. In the past two years, her photographs have been included in the All Alaska Biennial at the Anchorage Museum Rasmussen Center in Alaska, Smaller Footprints at the Lancaster Museum of Art and History (MOAH) in California, and Punctum: Photographic Center North-West’s 20th Annual Photography Exhibition, where her diptych Sparks was honored with the first place award. In 2016 she was one of a hundred photographers selected to attend Review Santa Fe with the body of work Between Land and Sky.

©Meike Paniza, Untitled (Water), from Between Land and Sea

Between Land and Sky

In the body of work Between Land and Sky I chose from the beginning to be attuned to the often overlooked and ordinary events of everyday life that attract my attention – fleeting time and the changes in light and mood from one second to the next. The camera can capture these moments, but contingency and context are required to be able to see the difference between what was and what is. The work was inspired by a wish to create a series of images that mimics the sensory and visual cues that inform my recollection of that which is both highly personal but also true to experience. The physicality of that experience is condensed, or rather transmuted, into a sprinkling of space, color, visual, and even auditory phenomena.

Although these images were shot in Alaska, they deliberately avoid being grounded to a specific location. The captured, fleeting moments are grounded in the photographic real – two summers and winters with my family in Anchorage, Alaska – however, because these scenes are isolated from a larger continuum, the meaning of the images remains open-ended. The fragmentary views are both elusive and weightless, offering no more than a poetic pause or glimpse of the temporal and physical space that we inhabit.