Natura Rochester Contemporary Art Center Rochester, New York February 6-March 22, 2009 John Pfahl's work is a tireless investigation of our perceptions, encompassing a variety of approaches but always with a keen awareness of the interaction of vision, images, and nature. His series Permutations on the Picturesque (1993-99) challenged the pixel's view of the landscape at a time when digital photography was just breaking through the soil, while his series Picture Windows (1978-81) framed the way we likely spend the most time seeing nature: gazing through panes of glass. An instructor at the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) from 1968 through 1985, Pfahl presided over the development of hundreds of imagemakers. Co-curated by Pfahl and RIT's Therese Mulligan, this exhibition is the latest installment in Rochester Contemporary Art Center's Maker/Mentor series and features Pfahl's work alongside that of fifteen former students, many of whom are now teachers themselves. Nonetheless, their works bear the indelible influence of Pfahl and his fascination with the intersection of images and nature. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A selection of tall, narrow prints from Pfahl's current Scrolls series (2006) sets the tone of the exhibition. His latest landscape alterations feature vistas digitally stretched to a shape resembling long, vertical, Asian scrolls. In the process, elements of the scene are lengthened, taking on new shapes and associations. In twilight in the wilderness (adirondacks) (2006), an elongated cloud pours down through the blue sky, oddly exhibiting a visual heft not seen in the diminutive and distant mountain range. Reeds in the placid swamp of autumn lagoon, braddock bay (2007) have the plasticity of pulled taffy when seen individually; when tightly packed, these wispy strands of grass read as rock solid. In Pfahl's hands, images of jagged peaks and scarlet sunsets--scenes commonly offered as simple celebrations of seeing--become a challenge to our methods of perception. The work of Pfahl's former students is a diverse lot that strongly declares its independent vision in a voice accented by the dialect of the teacher. Stances run the gamut: nature as a sanctuary, a slaughterhouse, a mystery, an oddity. The process of curious looking permeates the show, including commentary on the challenges of using the photographic machine to record the organic world. Grey Crawford's prints of flowers and foliage are confections of hardened sugar syrup, full of brash, squint-inducing color. Circular, lens-like shapes (all through his Blossoms #2 (2008) and Blossoms #5 (2008), focusing or blurring what lies beyond. Like Pfahl's Scrolls, Crawford reworks a worn photographic cliche--the close-up of the pretty flower--into a think piece on tools and processes. Following this thread, Jeannie Pierce's work presents head-and-shoulder shots of birds as if viewed through a sailor's collapsing scope. The round images float in a black square, reminding us that image technology corrals the natural, circular view of the lens into more aesthetically traditional squares and rectangles. Nature has long attracted collectors; two selections address the spoils of those likely to ignore the naturalist adage Take nothing but a picture. Alida Fish's series From the Cabinet of Curiosities (2007) shows us aquatic life whose now-waterless existence is devoted to amusing visitors to someone's Wunderkammer. Both the sea creatures and the photographs are beautiful objects; you'll become engrossed in the hard sponge texture of Horned Fish (2008) as rendered in the smooth, creamy grays of Fish's flawless tintypes. Silvia Lizama's work features marine dwellers that have become kitsch, are mounted to walls, or weigh down papers on a desk. Lizama hand-colors her gelatin silver prints--a method that generally ranges from distracting to worse. But her use of coral, seafoam, and other maritime hues are amazingly subtle, inspiring a double take upon realizing they are not, in fact, color photographs. …