Christina’s shimmering silver-gelatin prints illuminate a favourite muse of poets through the ages: water (and the nymphs that swim in it).

Her subaquatic “Underwater Studies”, created in swimming pools over the past twenty years, seem to exist outside of real life; as with the sculptures of Michaelangelo and Rodin (Hope’s inspirations), these elegant forms possess a timelessness borne of patience, perseverance, and a devotion to light.

The sense of effortlessness conveyed by Hope’s languid models belies the artist’s painstaking creative process. She explains: “All the conditions have to be right . . . the light patterns, the shadows, the movement of the fabric, and the way the figure moves under the water . . . all have to come together to achieve the effect I want. But it is the fluidity of the subject and composition which makes the art so uniquely beautiful—and which also makes it so difficult to capture on film.”

Via Meter