Known for her groundbreaking photographs of the interior lives of others, most famously her series The Sleepers and The Travelers, Elizabeth Heyert delves once again into the deepest emotional landscapes of strangers in her visionary new book Metamorphosis. Working with a trained hypnotherapist, Heyert takes us on a fascinating journey into the transcendent worlds of her subjects who after being hypnotized in her studio are photographed revisiting childhood memories or transforming themselves emotionally into animals, birds or other creatures unique to their subconscious fantasies. Then, as a dramatic and extreme counterpoint, Heyert also photographs people who attain transcendence by allowing themselves to be mummified and rendered immobile. Unlike the subjects under hypnosis, who are naked in every sense of the word, the wrapped bodies are intentionally hidden and demobilized so the person within remains a mystery, with their profound inner experiences left to the imagination of the viewer.
Limited Edition THE BOUND
Sixteen hand-pulled copper plate photogravures, edition of 10 signed by the artist
Image size 16 x 19.25 inches (40.5 x 49cm); Paper size 17 3/8 inches (45.4 x 49 cm)
Design by Leslie Miller; Binding by Mark Tomlinson; Printing by Lothar Osterburg
Essay by Stacey D’Erasmo; published by The Grenfell Press, New York 2016
Contact: studio@elizabethheyert.com
In 2003/2004 Elizabeth Heyert photographed the bodies of more than thirty people at the Harlem funeral parlor of Isaiah Owens who prepared the corpses for their last journey. She would take pictures early in the morning, after the families had said goodbye to their loved ones the previous evening and before the service later in the morning.
Do we reveal our hidden, inner self when we sleep? In THE SLEEPERS, Elizabeth Heyert's camera bears witness to moments rarely seen, when our public facade has vanished, and we are completely unaware of scrutiny. Working with a large format view camera from a balcony, Heyert documented modern men and women, in all their diversity, sleeping naked, singly and in couples. Against a stark black background, seemingly isolated in space, none of her subjects look like they are sleeping.
Best known for her controversial 2005 postmortem portrait series THE TRAVELERS, which The New York Times called "a peek... at the vibrant, living face beneath the mask of death," the former architectural photographer Elizabeth Heyert resumes her role as observer and voyeur in this fascinating third volume, THE NARCISSISTS. Inspired by the myth of Narcissus, and as a challenge to the Avedon idea that a photograph is about a relationship between two people, Heyert takes us through the looking glass, capturing her subjects unaware through a one-way mirror in a series of 15-minute photo-sessions.
Known for her unconventional approach to portrait photography, most notably her classic trilogy THE SLEEPERS, THE TRAVELERS, and THE NARCISSISTS, American photographer Elizabeth Heyert again assumes her role as observer and voyeur in her latest book, THE OUTSIDER photographed during four trips to China. Fascinated by the rituals of Chinese amateur photographers, who seem to shoot incessantly, with an intimacy with their environment that borders on stagecraft, Heyert embarked on a project to photograph the Chinese taking photographs of each other.
Interiors from New York, London, Barcelona, Milan, Mexico City, Paris, Berlin
In this presentation of the striking art and design of 32 homes in eight major cities in Europe and North America, well-known photographer Heyert aims to provide, not how-to decorating information, but a photographic appreciation of a variety of styles and artistic visions. Here she emphasizes the visual effects achieved by owners and designers of wealth and celebrity in homes in New York, Barcelona, Milan, Mexico City, Paris, Berlin, London, and Los Angeles.
In this social and aesthetic survey of photography’s first thirty years, Elizabeth Heyert offers an unusual selection of photographs, including rarely seen intimate images of the British royal family at play, as well as a selection of funeral albums and post-mortem portraits. Along with a brief history of photography’s earliest days, the author explores the careers of the “glass-house” entrepreneurs—commercial portrait photographers working in glass rooftop studios—and of pioneering amateurs and other independent spirits in the field such as Lewis Carroll and Julia Margaret Cameron.