Jachna, Untitled, 1960

After first encountering Joseph Jachna’s photographs of water in the 1970s, Brad Temkin was deeply moved by their quiet power and soon enrolled in the MFA program at the University of Illinois, Chicago, where Jachna led the program. The two developed a lasting friendship and mutual admiration, but it wasn’t until years after Jachna’s passing that Temkin, by chance, began re-engaging with his mentor’s lifelong muse—water. For Jachna, water embodied the sacred and the abstract, using tonal contrasts and natural forms to explore themes of balance, life, and interdependence.

Temkin’s own work now explores our inescapable reliance on water, capturing the massive infrastructure, like the Los Angeles Aqueduct, that delivers it. His photographs juxtapose sweeping vistas of engineered systems with aerial abstractions, revealing both the beauty and consequences of reshaping nature to meet human demand. This exhibition brings their works into conversation, illuminating water not only as subject, but as vital force—graceful, powerful, and essential.