Juggling Red and Blue

Artist: Martin Waugh

Title: Juggling Red and Blue

Media: Photography

Dimensions: 1366 x 2050 pixels

Date: 2006

Martin Waugh has a B.S. degree in Physics from Lewis and Clark College in Oregon.  He uses high-speed photography to enable him to capture soft, graceful curves of liquid.  His work can be found in museums, corporations, as well as private art collections.  Martin Waugh describes himself as a father, engineer, and artist.

“Liquid Sculpture images are fluids in motion, frozen in time by a flash of light. They are droplets witnessed in mid-splash.” – Martin Waugh

Martin Waugh coordinates these creations by perfectly aiming the varying drops and freeing them with precise timing.  Letting nature take its course, he then photographs the liquid forms unfolding.  He manipulates the liquid properties by altering the droplets’ direction and controlling the color, viscosity and surface tension.  He captures these sharp moments with a digital camera and electronic flash. 

Water is the single most important component of the sea; it takes up the most volume of the ocean.  I chose this artwork because this artist scrupulously captures water in the smallest forms.  This piece titled “Juggling Red and Blue” is a wonderful example of how he literally shows water playing with water.  He uses dye to accent the body of water that appears in juggling form.  The body and head are blue, while the arms are red.  The pieces he juggles are tinier pieces of itself.  The lighting, coloring, and timing the artist uses must be so exact that it is hard to discern how such a picture is even possible.  This artist displays how water, such a hard component to handle, can be manipulated to create such an astonishing and striking work of art.