Francine Fleischer took the photographs in The Water in Between in an exquisite and mysterious cenote, a deep natural well caused by the collapse of surface rock exposing the ground water beneath, and one once used by the Mayan civilization for human sacrifice. This exotic pool rimmed with draping vines is now a popular site for recreational swimming in today’s Mexico. This curious contradiction of purpose is palpable in Fleischer’s meditative and vibrant images of bathers taken 30 meters below the earth’s surface; captured unstaged and in natural light, her subjects play out unexpected choreographies and narratives. Photographed over a period of ten years, The Water in Between is a study of human nature and interactions, as well as an unapologetic appreciation of the beauty of a great shaft of light rendering bodies in dark moving water, with chiaroscuro qualities reminiscent of Caravaggio and the painterly textures of Rubens. When I gaze down on these bathers frolicking in the inky water, it is like looking down the rabbit hole into another world of subterranean dreams, Dantean scenarios, vulnerability and joy. - Francine Fleischer