Critic's Choice: Africa meets Alaska: A Wildlife Experience

By Rachel Swan - EastBayExpress - October 17-23, 2007

Rarely do we get to see the savannahs of Africa or the ice planes of Alaska without the filter of a BBC nature documentary, which usually involved a meticulous, passionless narrator, and tawdry cinematography.
But this month, photographers Oliver Klink and Munir Kureshi will regale the folk of Hercules with a more subtle and captivating glimpse of the natural World. The photographer's new exhibit, Africa Meets Alaska: A Wildlife Experience combines visions of pristine nature - a flower opening like pouting lip or a cloud band at twilight, mottled with the same purples and blacks that color the bruised part of a fruit - with surreptitious shots of eagles eviscerating their prey, or two zebras catching a stolen embrace.
Defying the cheesy lyricism of a National Geographic safari, Klink and Kureshi opt for a more expressionistic, often astonishing view of the road less traveled.
Africa Meets Alaska runs through November 17 at XZiBTit Hercules Art Gallery. IBTranslateit.com - Rachel Swan.