THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 20, 1995 TAG: 9508180054
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E9 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 101 lines
JOHN WADSWORTH'S first exhibit of fine art photography is a birth of sorts. And the subject is death.
Thanatopsis, or the philosophical musing on death, is a major theme for the Norfolk photographer, whose show ``Through a Veil, Darkly'' is on view at the Virginia Beach Center for the Arts. Wadsworth will speak and present a video on his work at 7 p.m. Thursday at the center.
Wadsworth, who makes his living as a commercial photographer, said the show will open in October at Moore Fine Art, a gallery in New York's Soho section.
``I never had any intention for anybody to see these,'' Wadsworth said, glancing around the huge open gallery at his 20 large-scale photos created since 1993. Like widows, the face of each image is covered by a sheer black veil.
With some pieces, the veil reaches the floor. One such work, titled ``You Must Go, I Will Come,'' depicts an ominous funerary angel whose eyes and wings glow like the eagle in ``Night on Bald Mountain'' in Disney's ``Fantasia.''
Wadsworth photographed memorial statues in cemeteries around the world in empathetic and romantic ways. In ``She Will Never Awaken From Her Marble Sleep,'' a close-up shows the head of a ``sleeping'' woman, as the hand of a loved one affectionately plucks a bloom from her hair. In ``The Dying Never Weep,'' ``tears'' of sediment have stained the face of a weathered angel.
Wadsworth shows two 1993 series that suggest his metaphysical view of the transition to death. The staged, impressionistic pictures narrate the process of releasing apparent reality and moving into the spiritual realm.
For these works, he used attractive nude models with long hair, dressed in black net body stockings.
``Clothes limit things,'' said Wadsworth, a calm, focused man with a sturdy physique and long blonde hair. ``They date things. They take your attention.''
The show also includes some very dark prints - darker than film noir - of medieval suits of armor and helmets. In one photo, the barest glimmer illuminates the outline of a steel heart on an armor breastplate in a piece titled ``Open Heart Outside My Cage.''
``To me, armor is just a stronger veil,'' Wadsworth said. ``The whole concept of a veil is about ignorance and misperception. The seven veils have to be lifted.
``Armor, to me, is such a great symbol. It is the hardest symbol of what people did to prevent death. Cover themselves in steel.''
Even armor isn't enough. Wadsworth recalled reading in Barbara Tuchman's ``A Distant Mirror'' the story of how farmers with bows and arrows slaughtered an advancing troop of armored warriors.
``Armor is another obsession of mine,'' Wadsworth said. ``I have an incredible portfolio of armor shots I have taken everywhere.''
Wadsworth is not a morbid fellow. He just feels he is well-versed on death. He dies every day, in a sense, as he meditates. Each day, he holds an awareness that we are dying every moment, and that we could truly die at any time.
He has no fear of death. Why shouldn't we embrace it? Wadsworth asks, adding, ``Death is the one universal that no one escapes. With me, there is a very deep coexistence with death in meditation. You are consciously taking apart your ego. They call it a death.''
An awareness of our inevitable fate ``energizes you,'' he said. ``It just keeps your whole attentiveness alert.''
If you thought like Wadsworth, you would want to remain alert at the time of death. A believer in reincarnation, Wadsworth has garnered from the Tibetan Book of the Dead - a significant text for him - that the circumstances of our rebirth are decided by our mind set at the time of death.
While enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the early 1970s, Wadsworth spent a year studying the Tibetan Book of the Dead.
``It gave me a perpetual awareness of emptiness,'' he said. ``That everything you see, your attachments, your repulsions are all generated out of your consciousness.''
He calls himself an avid devotee of the unknown, explaining: ``I love not projecting myself, or projecting what will happen. I love not knowing. To me, a major fear with dying is not knowing what will happen.''
At UNC, Wadsworth majored in English literature and Eastern religions. He wanted to be a writer and live a contemplative existence.
His direction changed in 1974, after he collaborated with a photographer on a book called ``Necronidus.''
``It means the nesting place of death. And it was all about the death process,'' he said.
``First thought, best thought,'' said Wadsworth, quoting Allen Ginsberg's beat maxim.
Still, it wasn't until his graduation in '75 that Wadsworth picked up a camera. And years later, he developed an impressive career as a photographer specializing in fashion and architectural interiors. His work has been published in Architectural Digest and House Beautiful. His prints are used to decorate such upscale stores as Saks and Tiffany's.
He insists that he's not a career-conscious person. To create one of the works, he flew to Atlanta to work with a certain theatrical makeup artist. On a whim, he'll fly to London to photograph cemeteries.
``I don't worry about time or place or money - because we could die at any moment,'' he said. ``It's true! I'm not morbid about it. But why else are we here?'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
A loved one's hand affectionately plucks a bloom from a
``sleeping'' woman's hair in ``She Will Never Awaken From Her Marble
Sleep.''
by CNB