Caleb Cain Marcus – A Brief Moment After Death

Review by Dan Johns and Douglas Stockdale • 

What transpires after one’s earthly passing? The earthly body ceases to function, but what of one’s spirit, essence, soul or other attributes attributed by various religions and faiths regarding the inner person? This is the concept behind Caleb Cain Marcus’s A Brief Moment After Death that visualizes what might be an ascent or passing from the physical into the metaphysical world. For most this final journey as visualized by Marcus might be a hope for an upward ascent into the heights of where the afterlife occurs.

Marcus’s ethereal subject is dreamy and poetic; the background colors are a soft palette of earthen and sky colors; a blend of blue, purples, ochre, yellow, ultramarine and pinks. The backgrounds are abstract patterns as though inspired by the abstract expressionist paintings by Cy Twombly mashed-up with Jasper Johns and Mark Rothko.

There appears to be something tangible appearing to move through the pictorial frame; as though a flock of speeding birds captured by a slow shutter speed. The indistinct shapes and ambiguous forms provide a sense of rapid movement; as if something is in a hurry to reach a new destination. We are visually swept along with this moving mass.

We are not in a hurry to find out if this abstract representation by Marcus is in fact accurate but in a romantic vein, we wish, perhaps hope, it were true.

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Caleb Cain Marcus – A Brief Moment After Death

Photographer: Caleb Cain Marcus (born in Colorado, resides New York City, NY (USA)

Published by Damiani, October, copyright 2018

Text: English

Stiff cover book, perfect bound, four-color lithography, printed in Italy

Photobook design & separations: Lumonsitylab

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