ISA MARCELLI: See Until I See No More

NOTE: Skeleton Key Press is SOLD OUT of this title. Any remaining copies are in very short supply and available directly from the author, Isa Marcelli. Please contact Isa directly here.

See Until I See No More is the debut monograph of Isa Marcelli and presents a substantial collection of her finest photographic works in an exquisite clothbound limited edition. Formerly a furniture designer and mosaic artist, Marcelli turned to photography in 2008, representing a new pathway to explore her personal vision. In the succeeding years, her inventive approach to the medium helped her emerge as a distinct voice among contemporary photographers participating in the revival of the reverse technology/alternative and historic process movement. Yet, while Marcelli’s wet plate collodion and lith pieces featured in See Until I See No More are notable for how they were made, it’s her willingness to embrace not only the unpredictable results that such processes lend themselves but also the equally unpredictable and more significant existential questions that bring her work authenticity, depth, and meaning.

And while the book will surely be appreciated by anyone interested in alternative process photography, Marcelli’s photographs—simultaneously delicate and powerful, mysterious and revealing—transcend the methods in which they were made. Her works often appear as if they were drawn from memory and offer viewers a reprieve from the chaotic world. They are universal because they are personal and act as archetypes of the unconscious, revealing more as the layers are peeled away. The photographs—portraits of family and friends, still lifes, florals, and places of tranquil refuge—are rich with symbolism and can be seen as metaphors for feminity, mortality, aging, desire, remembrance, the cycle of life, and becoming one with nature. Marcelli’s is a poetic, sensitive universe where nature and humanity mingle and reveal a vision of the world imbued with the fragility of existing—one in which viewers are welcomed in the pages of See Until I See No More.

PRESS:

Analog Forever｜Fotografi｜L’intervalle｜Focus (NL)｜Black+White Photography (UK), Issue 281 (cover/feature)

“[Isa Marcelli’s images] implore the viewer to see life as a beautiful, ever-changing puzzle that disappears from our eyes long before it is solved.” —Reid Masselink, from the foreword in See Until I See No More

“By the grace of traditional processes, which have become the prerogative of alternative adventurers, [Marcelli’s] images have a depth of time and space that evokes the unconscious and the fine, telluric, unpredictable work of memory.” —Fabien Ribery, L’intervalle

“Embracing antique photographic processes, Isa Marcelli has created a book that’s a balm against the constant noise of digital imagery.” —Jon Stapley, Black + White Photography (UK)

“The uneven and grainy outlines of the reality [in Isa Marcelli’s images] appear as something fragile or animal; something we have to strain to see and understand, but also as something that can disappear at any moment if we don’t take the time. For this is where the roots of storytelling sprout and grow; in the patient care of the gaze for the fragility of what we see.” —Kjetil Røed, Fotografi

“There’s something both dark and familiar about so much of this work. These scenes are those that skirt around the fringes of lucid dreams. They pull you in and allow you to linger in their luscious tones. They are both welcoming and dangerous. They are beautiful, frightening, and simply leave me wanting more.” —Michael Kirchoff, Analog Forever

ISA MARCELLI has practiced photography for over ten years, engaging in various historical silver processes that she feels best express a poetic vision of the world around her. Each of these experimental and often laborious techniques—including collodion, platinum, palladium, cyanotype, lith, and gum bichromate—combines the artisanal gesture with the accidental hazard, giving her work the form of sensuality and vulnerability. Her work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in France and around the world. She is represented by Johanna Breede PHOTOKUNST, Berlin.

REID MASSELINK (b. 1974) is an American artist who paints landscapes, teaches, and writes on various art historical topics.

Published by Skeleton Key Press, April 2023
ISBN 978-82-692410-5-1
20 x 26 cm (7.9 x 10.2 in)
Hardcover (clothbound/tipped-in image/foil stamped), 128 pages, 87 plates
Edited by Isa Marcelli & Russell Joslin; Sequenced by Russell Joslin
Book design by Russell Joslin
Foreword by Reid Masselink
Text in English

First Edition limited to 400 copies