Images were a quiet center at the heart of Amina Cruz’s childhood. She could enter the stillness of a photograph in all its complexity and live there for the moments that the page of a book was open to her and later, in the quiet of her own memory. She discovered their power early on, the world they could hold open to the viewer. At the boiling points of her early life it was these images that gave her air, a place to breathe and feel into the reality that seemed to be calling back to her from the road ahead.

Waves carry us, away from our own shores and back again— a perpetual movement stirred by a sense of longing— longing to leave and longing to return. Cruz’s own roots and the roots of her practice are deeply embedded in Los Angeles, the place that raised her. Her photos feel churned by this relationship to home. In a recent exhibition, her blue landscapes surface sporadically next to intimate portraits as if offering the individuals a support, a place to lean against.

In the image something swims. If you try to meet Cruz’s work only from the hum of your mind you miss what is precious to the emotional body— impressions, physical sensations, memories. Her photos are less still than they are briefly moored. As you sit with them the underlying waves coalesce. Her portraits swell, as though each person were preparing to speak, reaching for words and feelings that have grown beyond themselves. 


In a world that perpetually simmers with conflict, Cruz’s practice honors the belief in being surprised by life. This view is present in the moments her shutter closes over. These flashes within people, places and happenings that catch the light, provide subject and viewer with a quiet center. They are a place to breathe and feel into a future that is always calling back to us.