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Nature, technology focus of new Rockaway exhibits

By Arlene McKanic

Gordon's exhibit is made up of gorgeous prints she took of the fauna of the Galapagos Islands over two trips she made a few years back. There are red- and blue-footed boobies with their cute/ugly chicks, including one booby who has, improbably, adopted a frigate bird chick whose parents still come to feed him. Male frigate birds flaunt their inflated chest sacs like bright red balloons to attract females.

A seal lies on the surf, coated with sugar-white sand like a pastry while the nose of another seal makes a resting spot for a fly. A bright red Sally Lightfoot crab scuttles over pumice stone looking for provender.

The close-ups of land and marine iguanas make their pebbly faces seem as prehistoric as dinosaurs, though the species can't be more than five million years old, as the islands, born of volcanic eruptions, aren't more than five million years old.

“The way they got there was that they flew or they rafted,” said Gordon of the animals. She added that the islands, which all have several names in English and Spanish, used to be connected by land bridges. When the sea rose the land bridges disappeared and the animals stuck there had to evolve. Her marine iguana, who suns serenely on a rock, evolved from the land iguana. The marine iguana has a red body, while the land iguana is gray and black. Nobody knows why. The red coloring has nothing to do with what the lizards eat, nor does it seem to give any survival or reproductive advantages.

“It just is,” Holly shrugged.

When you look at these iguanas, giant tortoises and seabirds you're tempted to find them ugly and ridiculous – they don't call the birds boobies for nothing. They're also beautiful and dignified, and this ability to capture both aspects of her subjects, the beauty and severity of nature, seems to be the talent of the photographer. Even her landscapes alternate between barren lunar views and lush, green pastures.

In one set of photos, a baby sea turtle who was unfortunate enough to hatch during the day is captured by the camera minutes before its death by a hungry frigate bird. Most baby sea turtles hatch during the night, when most of the predatory birds don't hunt.

The turtle's demise was all for the best, Holly said, else it might live to pass on its dumb, daylight-hatching genes to another generation of sea turtles, and so hasten its species' extinction.

In another photo, the corpse of a frigate bird has washed up on the beach to become lunch for a bunch of Sally Lightfoot crabs.

A far cry from the natural wonder of Gordon's photographs, Jeffrey Berman, who occupies another studio at RAA, uses modern technology to create his vivid paintings. He shoots his subjects with a Fujipix S2 pro SLR digital camera, Photoshops them, prints them out on a large-scale archival printer and uses the images as underpaintings for layers of watercolor pastel. The effect is more than a little dreamlike.

Some of his works are impressionistic, with loose “brushstrokes” and bright colors that recall Monet, though “Modern Dancer” is Seurat-like while “The Dance,” with its full-bodied ballerinas dancing in a brightly lit sTudio 6, echoes Degas.

Often the figures seem wavy and almost expressionist, as if viewed through clear, rippling water. In “Brighton Beach Under El,” sunlight that falls through the elevated tracks onto the street breaks up into rainbow colors.

The paintings where couples tango at South Street Seaport at night gleams with city light, and sunlight floods “Walk on South Hampton Beach.” Sometimes you can't tell where the photo ends and the painting begins, as in “Freeport,” a scene of a foggy morning at the marina or the utterly lovely “Brooklyn Botanical Gardens.” In this work especially you can sense, without really sensing, the Photoshopped digital photos of the flowering trees and shrubs.

Berman's subject matter is mostly the rich cultural traditions of Queens and Long Island, from Korean fan dancers to Mariachi bands to the Mermaid Parade at Coney Island to the Caribbean Day Parade with its wild, glittery costumes. He seems especially enamored of Brooklyn.

In one work he portrays elderly Russians of Brighton Beach crossing the street, and in another young folks hang out at Coney Island at night.

One painting celebrates The Cyclone's 75th birthday, and in another the red-painted Parachute Jump looks as stately as the Eiffel Tower.

“Galapagos: Face to Face” and “Art of the 21st Century” are yet two more in an unbroken line of great exhibits at Rockaway Artist's Alliance. They'll both be up through May 23. They're at Fort Tilden Park at the end of the Rockaway Peninsula. Call 718-474-0861 for more info.