pre order - shipping early August 2026
L’Artiere, 72 pages, Hardcover, 290 x 225 mm, 2026
Photographer Scott Offen explores gender, spiritual pursuits, and the possible meanings of the natural world through his collaboration with his wife, Grace, with whom his life has been intertwined across many decades. Working primarily with view cameras, he engages in a slow, mutual process that allows time for conversation, careful planning, repeated takes, and spontaneous creativity. Together, Scott and Grace transcend the traditional relationship of the active man with the camera and the passive wife as sitter.
This book presents a body of work in which Grace escapes the bonds of her quotidian milieu and moves between the house and a fairytale forest. She appears as a Nordic goddess preparing for battle, a sylph resting beneath a tree, or a deity of wildness. Women of a certain age become, sociologically speaking, invisible and are not much seen in art; in these photographs, however, Grace is clearly seen, empowered, and free to inhabit her own unique and compelling alternate universe. Through beautiful, dreamlike, and symbolic images, the book raises questions about what is knowable in nature, in marriage, between individuals, and in one’s own mind.