Maryam Eisler
Maryam Eisler’s second solo exhibition, Imagining Tina: A Dialogue With Edward Weston will take place in London from February 8th to March 2nd, 2019.
The exhibition consists of 27 sensual monochrome Platinum prints made on natural deckled edge ARCHES® Platine 22 x30 in sheets. Each one was produced by the master Platinum printer, Martin Axon, whose craft has been used by many of the big names in the industry, among them Robert Maplethorpe, Host P. Horst, Annie Leibowitz and Patrick Demarchelier.
Carmel 03 © Maryam Eisler 2018 – Platinum Palladium print on ARCHES® Platine 56×76 cm.
For this series, Maryam reimagines the passionate love affair between the great American photographer Edward Weston and fellow photographer, muse, lover, and activist Tina Modotti. Eisler attempts to relive Edward and Tina’s revolutionary and bohemian “Mexico“ years, all the while imagining Tina through Edward’s intimate gaze. Eisler’s camera seeks the sensuous whilst painting contours with shadow and light.
The series was shot on Wild Cat Hill in Carmel, California, where Edward Weston lived from 1938 until his death in 1959. The “Little Grey Home in the West” is now home to Edward’s grandson, fine art photographer, Kim Weston and his wife, Gina.
“Whilst visiting the home of Edward Weston near Carmel in California, I stood in Edward’s original dark room, surrounded by his objects, all maintained as he had left them. These objects found in their original soulful setting triggered my own journey of creative fantasy. And, so I began to re-imagine Edward and Tina’s tumultuous affair, transported by time, space and place. It is the passion in their relationship and the role of Tina as muse, but also as a temptress, a collaborator and an instigator which has intrigued me for years.
Photographing at Weston’s home, I realised without conscious intent that I was, for the first time, honing in on the body, with an emphasis on purity of form, whilst attempting to extract an essence of the Sublime Feminine through shadow and light, the recurrent theme in my oeuvre. I was intent to present a closer and more intimate view of Woman; to give a visual interpretation of how I imagined Edward looking at Tina, at the height of their passion, all the while travelling a fine line between lust and trust, between the untouchable and the intimate.”
Maryam Eisler
Maryam Eisler is a London-based artistic photographer, editor and art patron. She was born in Tehran in 1968 and emigrated to Paris at age 10. She holds a BA in Political Science from Wellesley College (1989) and an MBA from Columbia University (1993).
Maryam is a former board member of Wellesley College and sits on the advisory board of the Columbia University Global Centers. She is currently involved in many activities: she is a Trustee of the Whitechapel Gallery in London; she also co-chairs Tate’s MENAAC (Middle East North African Acquisitions Committee) and is a member of the Tate International Council. Maryam is an Ambassador for Unseen Photo Fair (Amsterdam), sits on the advisory board of Photo London, also sits on the Strategic Advisory Panel for the Delfina Foundation and Columbia University Global Centers. She is a nominator for the Prix Pictet photography prize.
Maryam is a contributing Editor to LUX Magazine. She has additionally contributed both photographically and editorially to Harpers Bazaar Art, Harpers Bazaar Interiors, Vogue Arabia and Vanity Fair UK.
She has edited six books on art published by Thames & Hudson.
In 2014, Eisler was voted by Artnet as one of the “100 Most Powerful Women in Art”, and one of “The Most Influential Women in the European art world”.
https://www.maryameisler.com/about
For more information about Martin Axon (ARTMATTERSCT): www.platinumaxon.com, artmattersct@gmail.com
