shashasha

The first book by New York visual art duo Hart+Lëshkina explores layers of lust, desire, longing and fragility through the photographic medium, constructing a distorted sense of reality with twisted visual metaphors. Still lives feature items from the natural world, such as ice, snow, flowers, and from the human body - nails, hair teeth, fluids - to hint at the ephemeral nature of human life. The models, shot before pearlwhite scenery, are shown in the stages of undressing. The clothes (suits, stockings, tights, brassieres, gloves etc.), gathered in Moscow, their owners unknown, lend a sense of unity. They are connected in their desire to overcome the boundaries of their flesh, separate in their own unique, quiet loneliness of their sensual and physical variations. Beyond the Clouds calls to the primal emotions of its viewer, to feelings experienced with their own body, of death, pain, joy, and the desire for intimacy.

Book design by Japanese art director and graphic designer Hideki Nakajima. Published by Total Visual Shop in America.

— statement by the distributor (translation by shashasha)