Apocalypse II, Jerry Norman Uelsmann (1934–2022)

Jerry Uelsmann plays with the idea of illusion in his photograph of people gazing into a gentle Florida seascape and a bilaterally symmetrical tree, which echoes the mushroom cloud from an atomic explosion. This manipulated image hints at an apocalyptic future as well as the turbulence of the 1960s. Although Uelsmann alludes to negative events during this time period, the conflation of a tree with an atomic bomb invites the viewer to experience hope in the midst of chaos.

Uelsmann is an American photographer who often combines images of human figures and landscapes in his works to produce dream-like results. The artist experiments in the darkroom to compose his complex, multilayered negatives in black and white.