Between 2014 and 2020, Ian Bates traveled tirelessly along the West Coast of the United States. For years, he has photographed there a charred land suffering from increasing scorching wildfires. But, far from any voyeuristic dramatization, scarce are the depictions of the roaring flames, or of the fire’s fury. Rather, standing at a respectful distance, Bates photographs in rich black and white tones what is at the margin, the traces, the aftermaths. The beauty and horror of the landscape, too, enshrouded in a grey cloak of ashes and plumes. “There is a moment after a wildfire burns but before humans return”, says Bates, “where the land and forests are both beautiful and terrifying.”
His photographs, seemingly suspended out of time in a muffled silence, at the edge of the catastrophe, are a meditative exploration on this liminal stage between calm and violence, on the fine line we dance on when we build and expand on nature’s ground. A meditation on the harshness, anxiety, and beauty of wildfires—which can, as well as destroy, prepare a fertile ground for new life to start.
