“Charisma II”
Typically, when we imagine boats being at their best, it’s a mental image of a halcyon day: waves splashing playfully against the hull, a yolk-yellow sun warming the decks, an endless expanse of ocean to travel through. (Not unlike many of the photos on this website.) What I’m quite sure you don’t imagine: a boat on the hard. Her water-worn blotches and unsightly blemishes hauled up on dry land for all to see. It’s a necessary part of every boat owner’s yearly maintenance plan, but to New York City photographer Michele Dragonetti, it’s so much more. It’s art. “I know and realize there’s a sort of a corrosive, negative impact [going on] on the surface of the boat,” says Dragonetti, “probably the bane of every boat owner’s existence.” A few years ago, wandering Montauk’s marinas, shooting piles of fishing nets and lobster traps, she came across a boat on stands being prepped up for summer. When she went home, she discovered the abstract qualities and triangular shape of the bow came together to form something borderline human: the hidden faces of boats most of us don’t see. Thus started a journey that has taken her to Portugal, Spain, England, and Cuba, and has amounted to thousands of pictures. “Over time I’ve come to think of them as portraits,” says Dragonetti. “They have a consistency in structure just like in human faces, but there’s also a uniqueness in identity just like in human faces showing what each one has been through in their lives.”
—Simon Murray
Photography by Michele Dragonetti
Dragonetti’s photography series Boat Hulls is being featured at the East Hampton Town Marine Museum
in Amagansett, New York, until October 2017.
“La Buena Vida”
Photography by Michele Dragonetti
Dragonetti’s photography series Boat Hulls is being featured at the East Hampton Town Marine Museum
in Amagansett, New York, until October 2017.
“Nauti Dawg”
Photography by Michele Dragonetti
Dragonetti’s photography series Boat Hulls is being featured at the East Hampton Town Marine Museum
in Amagansett, New York, until October 2017.
“Niki”
Photography by Michele Dragonetti
Dragonetti’s photography series Boat Hulls is being featured at the East Hampton Town Marine Museum
in Amagansett, New York, until October 2017.
“Untitled”
Photography by Michele Dragonetti
Dragonetti’s photography series Boat Hulls is being featured at the East Hampton Town Marine Museum
in Amagansett, New York, until October 2017.
“Joan-E”
Photography by Michele Dragonetti
Dragonetti’s photography series Boat Hulls is being featured at the East Hampton Town Marine Museum
in Amagansett, New York, until October 2017.
“Saint Agnes III”
Photography by Michele Dragonetti
Dragonetti’s photography series Boat Hulls is being featured at the East Hampton Town Marine Museum
in Amagansett, New York, until October 2017.
