Amy Elkins – Anxious Pleasures

Review by Douglas Stockdale ·

During the initial days of the COVID-19 pandemic with the immediate requirement to shelter in place many of us were probably wondering what we were to do, when is this going to end, how am I going to be impacted this, on and on and on. Many, like Amy Elkins, were placed into a state of total self-isolation; “I found myself in a 340 sq ft apartment in a Bay-area neighborhood that was emptying by the day”.

Most of us found ourselves dealing with these unusual circumstances as best we could. For Elkins, she personified her situation in a manner that was conducive with her artistic background; she initiated an artistic project using the artist materials found close at hand. That was a small desktop printer, transparency inkjet film and some cyanotype pre-coated material that only required a tray of water to process the prints. As she states “(My) approach is series-based, steeped in research and oscillates between formal, conceptual and documentary” frequently including aspects of portraiture. And she had a willing subject during this period of isolation; herself.

What resulted is a year plus (377 consecutive days) of a daily ritual of self-portraits printed as cyanotypes that was published by Kris Graves Projects as Anxious Pleasures. As the title implies, this was a project that belied her anxiousness in what was occurring, while there is also a small amount of pleasure as a result of creating this series of self-portraits as an artistic endeavor.

Her cyanotypes are sequenced as her series unfolded and perhaps reflects the various stages of her grief as the various events occurred; a mashup of denial, anger, bargaining, anxiety and perhaps at the end with the availability to the COVID vaccine and the pandemic starting to wane, acceptance. These emotions are forward steps in the healing journey, even when it doesn’t feel like it at the moment. The ending cyanotype for the book reveals her COVID booster band-aid securely in place, thus also marking the end point of her COVID project.

Examining this portfolio, I am struck by the variety of self-portraits that Elkins creates; some appear to be an act of defiance while others are whimsical, humorous, witty, self-deprecating and as a whole, amusing, and delightful to view. I cannot help but think that as the year wore on, to create something fresh and new might have become a create challenge in of itself, while she appears to have been entirely up to this artistic challenge.

There is also a certain quality of artistic references in her self-portraits. Perhaps as a result of her academic art practice her self-portraits have hints of historical portrait genres drawn from the ages, with a very contemporary twist. She utilizes what is at hand, be it a house plant or plastic grocery bags, an odd combination from her closet, while she is sometimes hidden beneath many layers or conversely front and center confronting the camera’s lens. Perhaps these costumes and masks are not so much a disguise but an attempt at encompassing ‘every women’ in the range of emotions she embodies in her experience as well as a potential parody on the passing event.

In retrospect, it is interesting that the medium that Elkins chose, cyanotypes, results in a blue image, which recalls the ‘blue’ melancholy period famously visualized by Picasso. It is stated that cyanotypes have a ‘Prussian’ blue hue, but as evident in this body of work, and my own experience with cyanotypes, there is not one color which denotes it. There are a number of variables that result in a wide plethora of blue shades that are possible in the final print, which adds another quality to the interesting variety of self-portraits Elkins creates. I also found that her book is a treatise on what a cyanotype portrait might look like.

Elkins is admittedly not attempting to be an expert in this alternative photographic medium of cyanotypes that dates back to the 1840’s, while the resulting variation in this mediums hues and colors adds to the variety and part of the unknown and perhaps uncertain future.

Likewise, the cyanotype process has an element of uncertainty and not always knowing exactly what the resulting artwork will look like, perhaps an idea of what it might appear, and those results can be sometimes surprising. This element of chance is similar to the unfolding COVID events as well as her own changing situation.

This book is compact and dense, measuring 5 ¼ “ wide x 6 ¾ high and a hefty 1 ¾” thick. As a result of the size in conjunction with the tight binding, this book does not lay flat when open, which is the reason for my fingers frequently being included in the page spreads, below. This tight binding could also be considered a metaphor for keeping her narrative confidential, that she is revealing some very personal information that requires care in handling. The size of the book has been downsized from the larger cyanotype pre-coated cloth material that she utilized. Interspersed are words drawn from the poems of Joy Sullivan that are cleverly woven in using cyan hued velum pages that create an introspective layering when stacked on top of Elkins images.

She speaks for countless individuals who found themselves in a similar situation during COVID dealing with the solitude, loneliness, and isolation resulting from the shelter in place, while facing the unknown of what may come next and how long will this isolation last and what might society at large look like on the other side.

The COVID pandemic has a cast a somber light on our society considering the number of lives lost and how long-term COVID is still affecting so many individuals. The threat of this virus still lingers and Elkins photobook is a strong reminder not to take anything for granted. As she astutely states “The portraits became less about those initial fears and more about confronting the boredom, anxiety, grief, and fatigue of living in indefinite isolation during a global pandemic.” In doing so, she raises questions about identity, reality, the past and our collective future.

____

Douglas Stockdale is a visual artist, Critical Mass 2023 Finalist and founder of PhotoBook Journal

____

Anxious Pleasures, Amy Elkins

Photographer: Amy Elkins, born in the Los Angeles area and resides in the San Francisco Bay Area, California

Poems: Joy Sullivan

Text: English

Hardcovers, sewn binding, offset printing, 472 pages with 377 illustrated plates, 5.13 x 6.5”, 400 copies, printed by Graphicom, Italy, ISBN 978-1954877-00-9

Photobook Designer: Caleb Cain Marcus / Luminosity Lab, NYC

_____

Articles and photographs published in the PhotoBook Journal may not be reproduced without the permission of the PhotoBook Journal staff and the photographer(s). All images, texts, and designs are copyright of the authors and publishers.