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Rembrandt van Rijn, The Company of Frans
Banning Cocq and Willem van Ruytenburch, known as
the ‘Night Watch’ (1642). Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.
Erich Lessing | Art Resource, ny.
ARTIST' s BLOOD
By Professor Margaret Cohen, Stanford University
With his title phrase, Surfers' Blood, Patrick Trefz invites us into the intense communities
and deep commitments formed around a practice, which, beyond sport or relaxation, is
a passion and a way of life. Within the surf world, Trefz is known for his subtle, dramatic,
and off-beat portrayals of people, waves, and athletic feats. What may be less apparent,
given Trefz's low-key style and the popular reputation of surfing, is how his images rework
iconic themes and techniques from the history of Western fine art.
Group Portrait With Keg And Motorcycles
In The Westsiders [122, 123], Trefz portrays an elite clan of Santa Cruz surfers, including
Flea, Barney and Ruffo, together with their buddies. Each of these men is famous for his
idiosyncrasies, to echo the title of Trefz's 2010 film (Idiosyncrasies). In The Westsiders,
however, Trefz mutes differences among individuals to accentuate their hectic group
identity. Trefz credits the organization of the photo to the Westsiders themselves,
prompted by Flea and a keg of beer. At the same time, the unity of the picture owes a
great deal to its composition. Note the unifying effect of a tense, gritty palette of blacks,
grays, and white. The Westsiders bond around props that serve as emblems of adrenaline,
speed, and aggression, such as a custom-built car and bikes, their impenetrable shades,
and a lean pit bull with a choke-chain collar. Note, too, how the photo crowds people
together against a neutral backdrop reminiscent of a driveway, where you can almost
smell the gasoline.
The use of composition to fuse rugged individiuals into a group dates to 17 th century Dutch
painting. Compare The Westsiders, for example, with Rembrandt van Rijn's The Company
of Frans Banning Cocq. True, the energy in Rembrandt's image is boisterous rather than
tense. Rembrandt's militia is ready to sally forth at us, while the Westsiders challenge the
viewer with defiant detachment.
Nonetheless, similar composition melds the companies of Captain Cocq and that of Flea.
Sanguine tones are Rembrandt's equivalent to the tense palette of The Westsiders. The
bodies of Rembrandt's soldiers too fuse around expressive emblems: lances and swords,
a company banner, and a drum beating the march to battle. A raised glass in both the
pictures of Rembrandt and Trefz is one symbol of male bravado constant across centuries.
The Dandy And His Quiver
Often shot in medium-format black and white, Trefz's portraits bring us close to surf
celebrities such as Bruce Irons [115], diverging from conventional celebrity photography,
which puts the star at an untouchable distance. Trefz's intimate gaze does not shy away
from disturbing aspects of surfers' adrenaline-fueled lifestyles. In a photo Trefz took
for Surfer Magazine [44], Flea shows off his recovery from meth abuse, with his body,
back in fighting shape, soaped clean. Or thus, the weary Anthony Ruffo [111], known
for his struggles with drug-dealing and the law, whose halo is the unflattering artificial
illumination of a flare, framed from the shoulders, as in a prison mug shot.
Social rebels have fascinated artists and writers since the Romantics of the 19 th century.
Surfers, too, capture our imagination with their “burning desire to create a personal
form of originality.” The phrase comes from the 19 th century poet and art critic Charles
Baudelaire, writing about “the dandy,” a figure celebrated in his time for rebelling against
the “triviality” of everyday experience. Today, the dandy suggests a man overly concerned
with dress, but in the 19 th century, such care was part of how the dandy put his body on
the line, which he did in dangerous sports as well. Viewing Jacques-Louis David's Portrait
of Pierre Seriziat, for example, we admire the relaxed, athletic posture of the consummate
horseman, dressed in a suit in fact adapted to riding, although fashion deems it frilly today.
Compare David's Pierre Seriziat to a dandy for the 21 st century: Jason “Ratboy” Collins.
In Trefz's Rat and his Quiver [23], Ratboy is sprawled in baggy comfort, surrounded by
acid-colored, wax-incrusted, graffiti-decked boards. Trefz frames an artistically selfconscious
surfer dandy in his photo of Barney holding a photoportrait of Salvador Dali
[47] (a picture taken by Trefz's father). Defiance of social norms is part of the dandy's
creed; in another turn of the screw, Dali mocks the dandy's elegance with his bouffant
chef's hat and exaggerated mustache. So does Barney, with his enigmatic expression,
part Mona Lisa, part Harpo Marx.
Surfing Sublime
Among Trefz's surf action shots, big-wave riding recurs. In these images, as in his
oceanscapes, Trefz imbues mutant waves with stunning formal beauty. In the picture of
the wave Ghost Trees surfed by Adam Replogle [119 ], the water lights up a bioluminescent,
icy blue. The photo entitled Ke'Iki Deathpound [61] is a study in undulating shades of
gray. When Trefz captures Jeff Clark surfing Maverick's, the wave is almost like a piece of
magnificent fabric, silky lines of water sucking upwards to a frothing, deadly lip.
The tension in such photos between the terrifying subject and its exquisite presentation
belongs to an aesthetic known as “the sublime.” Since the Enlightenment, philosophers have
pondered why artists and writers compel us depicting the deadly power of nature. Both
mountains and seas were dear to the 19 th century British master of the sublime, J.M.W. Turner.
Jacques-Louis David, Portrait of Pierre Seriziat
(1795). Louvre, Paris. Erich Lessing | Art Resource, ny.
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