Praia Piquinia 28/08/10 12h20 by Christian Chaize

Praia Piquinia 28/08/10 12h20 is also available in an 80"x60" ($10,000) size.

PLEASE NOTE: These prints will not ship immediately. Working with an international artist often extends our production time line, and because they're c-prints, the production process is different too. We will keep collectors apprised of the delivery date via email.

Surprise! Bet you didn't expect to see me popping up in your inbox on a Saturday morning, and yet: here I am. If you're hanging out with us on The Twitter, you got early word about today's special newsletter dispatch announcing our new edition by the photographer who's transformed vacationing into high art, Christian Chaize. Our newest edition from Christian captures a perfectly imperfect day at the shores of his favorite (now fabled) Portuguese beach. Praia Piquinia 28/08/10 12h20 is the same shoreline seen in our beloved previous editions by Christian, this one veiled with the thinnest layer of fog.

The fog's softening of summer sunshine makes a day at the shore seem much more palatable to my lily white self, while also enhancing the misty water-colored-memory vibe that gets a girl daydreaming about summers past and future. Regular readers know well how much I love the ocean, and have heard my various theories about why my "like" of this body of work has gradually transformed itself into "love, Love, LOVE". Surely some of it is personal, having lived with various prints of the work over the past few years, and also getting to know Christian himself, who is really just awfully swell. And then professionally, the work has been meaningful as well—garnering both 20x200 and the gallery enviable media attention, but more importantly, bringing incredible joy to our collectors.

When I first wrote about Christian's work, I described how I came to understand the Praia Piquinia series as being very different than the work that it's most frequently compared to—Massimo Vitali, frequently, and then sometimes Richard Misrach. With sea, shore and sunbathers in common, it's easy to see the similarities between all three photographers, but if you consider the people, places and perspective (omg, so alliterative!) a major difference emerges. Back then, I talked about how Vitale and Misrach were making work about humanity, and that Christian's is about being human.

Today I'll go a step further, and say that Praia Piquinia is about love—of place, of memory, of being alive. Christian leads his artist statement with a quote by Proust: The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. To remain on this voyage with everything that is familiar is what differentiates love from infatuation. It's a bold statement, but it's one made with confidence. I'll give you the weekend to form your own theories about why I think this is so, and then fill you in on my POV in just 48 hours when I return with a second brand new edition from the series.

Both editions' unusual structure is based on both image and audience: they start at the 14"x11" size because those are the smallest dimensions at which the images' complexities unfold. It's also available at three larger sizes—40"x30", 60"x50" and 80"x60"—first and foremost because they look ahhhmazingly amazing at such proportions, and also because collectors like you have frequently requested these sizes. This is the first time we've ever offered a print that's 80"x60", in part based on the overwhelming response to similarly proportioned print from the series shown in the gallery and subsequently published in an ELLE DECOR feature about one of our collector's homes.