MOMENTS REFLECTED (SIGNED AND NUMBERED, edt of 350)

Øyvind Hjelmen
MOMENTS REFLECTED (SIGNED AND NUMBERED, edt of 350)

Photographs: Øyvind Hjelmen

Text: Saabye Christensen Lars

Publisher: Skeleton Key Press

72 pages

Pictures: 41

Year: 2020

Price: 40 €

Comments: Hardcover with tipped in picture, 28,5 x 24,5 cm, b&w photographs. Numbered first edition of 350. Signed by Øyvind Hjelmen. Design by Kjersti Hjelmen and Russell Joslin

In his second monograph, Norwegian photographer Øyvind Hjelmen welcomes viewers into his richly poetic and mysterious photographic world: Moments Reflected. Expanding on his portfolio of the same title by including works not previously published or exhibited, the lyrically sequenced and meticulously printed duotone plates presented in this volume are characterized by deep shadows, bursts of penetrating light, and the gauzy aesthetics often associated with analog photographs made using plastic or other low-tech cameras. Yet beyond Hjelmen’s command of craft and masterfully honed aesthetics, his enigmatic photographs maneuver slowly below the surface. It is on this subliminal level that the personal becomes universal and alludes to the human experiences of memory, fear, loss, sexuality, hope, nightmares, and doubt. As the widely celebrated Norwegian novelist Lars Saabye Christensen suggests in his essay that opens the book “. . . doubt is an artistic force. . . . Hjelmen’s viewpoint is never that of one who is absolutely certain, but of one who seeks.” Thusly, Moments Reflected endeavors to reward the intuitive and contemplative viewer/seeker as page-by-page the visually poetic narrative unfolds like a dream.

(From the artist's website)