Critical Mass Books

Amy Stein crafts photographic allegories set simultaneously in a number of different liminal spaces. Her sure and realistic color works manifest the place where the human-built meets the wild, but in addition they show us where the factual descriptive image meets fiction. Despite their apparent realism, her images are posed and constructed, sometimes using models and taxidermy props, sometimes using the bodies of dead or living animals to re-create, record and perform actual events that occurred in the small Pennsylvania town of Matamoras.

What at first appears to be a series of photojournalistic decisive moments is revealed, at a second look, to be a powerfully imagined vision that establishes its strength through its very artificiality. (Stein’s images) are used as a means to manifest and examine the human condition and the state of the planet, while never abandoning the essential groundedness of her informants, and the realities of their specific tales.

– Alison Nordström, George Eastman House Curator

Softbound, 64 pages, 25 photographs