Grace

For 26 years, Elisabeth Sunday has found her muse in Africa: a place of origins, devastating beauty, great troubles and unyielding expressions of life. She has traveled alone and lived among various original peoples who amidst a changing world, have clung tenaciously to traditional ways of life. From the hunter-gatherers dwelling in the primeval forests of the Congo Basin, to the nomadic tribes inhabiting the vast stretches of the Sahara Desert, Sunday’s photographs reveal an interplay of invisible forces that connect her subjects with the world of nature. Utilizing a flexible mirror of her own design, Sunday photographs reflections that blend and dissolve the boundaries between her figures and their environment. Sunday’s images express an intimacy with a corresponding strength derived from that relationship. She writes: “Mirror photography is much more than photographing a reflection, it produces a visual alchemy that combines the physical world with that of the great mystery….and captures some element that remains hidden in straight photography.” Elisabeth Sunday’s work has been widely exhibited and collected throughout the United States and abroad. “Grace”, the artist’s first monograph, opens with an eloquent and enlightening essay by Deborah Willis. The book is printed in an oversized (14 x 17 inch) format on uncoated art paper and bound in Japanese cloth. This first printing is limited to 1,000 copies.