"The essential things in life are seen, not with the eyes but with the heart." -St. Exupery.

Whether ironic or lucky, if you're his friend, it is readily apparent that Jerry Avenaim sees St. Exupery's "essential things" with both the heart and the eyes.

I clearly remember our first long conversation taking place on the road to Twenty-Nine Palms, in the California desert. Without recounting any of the more sordid details which might not be suitable for the printed page, I can safely say one thing, his sense of humor, charm, and dedication to his craft, ensured that we would become lifelong friends.

In those days we discovered something called magic. It was a great time to be alive. And the fame that lay ahead for Jerry had not yet begun to weave the shroud of his happiness. As with any friendship things can be sometimes mercurial, together we journeyed through the peaks and valleys of our friendship. If we tore each other apart, little by little, it was for fear of being the first to be eaten alive. The world of the artist can sometimes be cruel and unfair, with no evident sense of justice. With that becoming clearer to both of us, the foundation of our friendship strengthened.

What bound us together more intimately than a feigned ersatz kiss one might see at the local cinema was the photograph... Nothing but the photograph. It was the wall we had to scale in order to escape from the confines of our firmament. We had invested so much of our innocence in the idea of our wall, that we had no choice but to conquer its ethereal concrete confines. The world of photography has taught us how to live, and unlike a cliched movie ending, Jerry will always have the ultimate reprisal... his work.

The photographs of Jerry Avenaim represent the testimony of one of the rising artists of our time. With the characteristic variety of mood and tone so evident in his editorial work, these photographs organically combine the purity and innocence of the nude with the fierce and sometimes ominous beauty of our natural landscape. They clearly document the development of a young artist tortured with lack of formal education to a mature and highly sensitive photographer. It is in Jerry's work that his personality and character emerge. His images demonstrate the victory of what is seen over what is not seen. Rather, by what is said. These images, ultimately, reveal the warmth and humanity of a man whose work is his life-long passion...

...a passion of struggle...

...a passion uncompromised...

...a passion of purity...

-Yuri Elizondo-