Photographer Robert Frank supposedly once said: “When people look at my pictures, I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice.” This sentiment encapsulates the essence of photobooks in the current Book Bliss series—a collection of exceptional, evocative, and thought-provoking visual stories that beckon continuous revisitation. These arresting pictorial narratives unfold tales of past traumas, unveil the mysticism woven into everyday moments, and rekindle universal childhood memories and emotions. The majority of the publications come from independent publishers, spanning regions as distant as Texas and Greece, injecting a breath of fresh air into the world of art books with their innovative designs, poignant photography, and conceptual intricacy.
Elena Helfrecht: Plexus
Plexus, authored by the Bavarian-based visual artist Elena Helfrecht, presents a mesmerising exploration of an eerie, magical world reminiscent of a dark Brothers Grimm fairy-tale. As one flips through its pages, they are drawn into a mysterious realm, each time discovering new details, layers, and paths for interpretation, all anchored in notions of post-memory. This extraordinary publication hails from VOID, an independent publishing house operating between Greece and Iceland. According to founders Myrto Steirou and João Linneu, their books promise “powerful stories and innovative design, melded together with fine and experimental materials,” and they unquestionably deliver with Plexus.
Helfrecht’s work creates an unsettling atmosphere through minimalistic yet powerful black & white imagery. Levitating objects, a black chasm beneath floorboards, sideways-growing stalactites, and enigmatic animal presences propel the viewer into a dreamlike state. Birds’ embryos, heads and feathers, duck feet standing on their own, snake skins, and omnipresent moths and spiders fuse with barren, dark interiors, creating a surreal mystic cauldron.
The title, Plexus, meaning a network of nerves or vessels, aptly reflects the interconnectedness of family stories with broader historical contexts. The book unfolds as a journey through generational trauma, where Helfrecht’s photographs from a patrimonial estate in Bavaria coalesce with archival images. Excerpts from the family album begin with depictions of idyllic country life but progressively unveil the dark undercurrents of war.
The immaculately executed design of the book beautifully complements the narrative, with cover embossing resembling snake skin and a colophon spreading through several pages blended with plasma-like drawings. Enclosed within French folds, Camilla Grudova’s short story, The House Surgeon, adds another layer to the book, disclosing a tale of a disconcerting growth infiltrating a family’s home, compelling the protagonist to continually extract it. The destructive act of cutting pages open becomes an essential yet discomforting part of the reading experience.
The recurring motif of bird embryos concludes with the last image in the book: a bird hatching. Does it signify a new beginning, challenging the theme of inherited trauma? Perhaps, with another flick through the pages, the answer will draw nearer.
Elena Helfrecht: Plexus has been published by VOID.
Trent Davis Bailey: The North Fork
The North Fork Valley in Colorado, nestled within the historical and spiritual territory of the Ute Indian Tribe, holds a prominent place in the vivid imagination of photographer Trent Davis Bailey. Initially explored during childhood visits to relatives, the location emerged as a utopian landscape—a serene haven graced with pristine rivers, picturesque mountains, and small farms, where people lived in tune with nature. A family dispute abruptly halts those idyllic trips, but nearly twenty years later, Bailey returns to the valley, rediscovering it with the same sense of wonder. Eventually finding love, the photographer settles in the North Fork while continuing to capture the essence of the valley and its calm, tranquil ambiance.
The book seamlessly merges the history of the valley and its residents with Bailey’s personal family story. The photographs convey not only the ever-present freedom and peaceful existence but also the enigmatic energy that suffuses such a seemingly infinite expanse. Portraits of individuals adapting to the rhythm of the land and seasons evoke a sense of time coming to a standstill. The artist’s lens capture people immersed in nature—plunging into water, climbing trees, lying naked in snow, and tenderly caring for farm animals. Even in depictions of nature, human impact is frequently evident—such as a soil in the forest marked by car wheel tracks or a tree with an engraving of Saint Mary. The human and beyond-human worlds are intertwined, yet they exist in harmony with each other.
Enclosed in a slipcase, the book’s linen softcover impeccably corresponds with the photographed scenes in its organic nature and rough texture. The serenity of portrayed world is deepened by the order of images arranged to coincide with the seasons. The publication’s size, coupled with ample white space surrounding predominantly singularly featured images, enables an exclusive focus on each capture, allowing them to evoke distinct emotions and connotations rooted in personal dreams and past experiences.
Trent Davis Bailey’s photographs radiate with nostalgia, conjuring a sense of longing that is difficult to fully grasp. The valley, representing a universal childhood dream, feels almost unreal, as if it could exist solely in memory. Rebecca Solnit’s thoughtful essay concluding the book masterfully completes this visual journey. Speaking of how each photograph holds its own story within, she accurately sums up what The North Fork is: “a book of yearning for what has been and might be, a book of looking at what it is to see what lies beyond.”
Trent Davis Bailey: The North Fork has been published by Trespasser Books.
Evgenia Arbugaeva: Hyperborea: Stories from the Arctic
Thames & Hudson’s most recent publication delves into the enigmatic allure of the Arctic—an expanse of silence and paradoxical white darkness that has captivated artists for decades. Authored by Evgenia Arbugaeva, a photographer and Oscar-nominated filmmaker born and raised in deep Siberia, Hyperborea emerges as a true gem of polar photography. Through years of dedicated work, the artist has captured the essence of a place that defies complete revelation, unveiling the Arctic’s diverse facets through painterly shots reminiscent of Andrei Tarkovsky’s films.
The book is divided into four chapters, each presenting a unique story from different coastal areas in the Siberian Arctic. Commencing with a short written introduction by Arbugaeva, the segments emerge like visual poems, painting the Arctic in varying hues. Beginning with the chief of a meteorological station, collecting data in the blue-dusk solitude of polar night, through the story of young lovers operating another remote research facility lit by a symphony of white, pale blue, and beige—the palette of the Arctic day—to a deserted ghost-town bathed in the aurora borealis’ turquoise glow, Arbugaeva guides us through an Arctic that is at once mysterious and hauntingly beautiful. The evocative images portray the delicate balance between human existence and the unforgiving Arctic environment. Amidst the vast white plains and the ethereal mysticism of the Arctic Ocean, human presence is scarce and often manifests itself only through structures and objects—an old radio, a wall-mounted map, apples wrapped in a newspaper, an old shack by the sea with ‘The Edge of the Earth’ inscribed on it with white paint.
The final chapter unfolds in Chukotka, where Native communities resiliently preserve their traditions despite the challenges of climate change. As Piers Vitebsky, the author of an introductory essay, aptly puts it, “The white man’s world of science and militarism is a recent overlay on the ancient Indigenous animal world where the little Chukchi girl dances the movements of birds.” In this timeless landscape, inhabitants harmonise with the land and engage in activities like hunting whales and walruses, fishing, and herding reindeers, showcasing a profound connection that spans centuries. In contrast to individuals from previous stories, Natives thrive without relying on modernity; their survival intertwined with a deep respect for hunted mammals and an appreciation for the life-sustaining nutrition they provide. How much longer they can maintain their traditional lifestyle remains uncertain, given the imminent threat of global warming evident in vanishing ice and the increasing concentration of walruses on beaches.
Evgenia Arbugaeva skilfully captures the multi-dimensionality of the Arctic—a realm of ice that appears primitive yet is rich with stories, landscapes, colours, and emotions. Her work unveils both the beauty and the deep melancholy of this unique place, which may soon lose its soul.
Evgenia Arbugaeva: Hyperborea: Stories from the Arctic has been published by Thames & Hudson.
Ania Ready: I Also Fight Windmills
A nomad, feminist, writer, poet, rebel, outcast, madwoman, and self-proclaimed free spirit—Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska embodied a myriad of identities. Living at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries, this Polish national was ahead of her time, driven by dreams and determination to be recognised as an author. She taught herself fluent French and English, working across two continents as a nanny, teacher, and domestic worker. Amid these roles, she ceaselessly wrote numerous pieces—short stories, a novel, an autobiography, an 800-page diary, poems, and plays. Despite her prolific creative output, she remained unacknowledged, ultimately passing away alone and forgotten in a UK mental asylum.
Ania Ready, a Polish-British photographer, discovered Sophie Gaudier-Brzeska’s writing and became fascinated by her story. Over four dedicated years, Ready immersed herself in the writer’s manuscripts and embarked on voyages to places associated with the artist, all in the hope of unraveling the complexities of this enigmatic persona. I Also Fight Windmills is the culmination of Ready’s journey. Published in a limited edition of 300 copies by VIKA Books, a London-based book designer specialising in innovative and highly sustainable publications, this literary photobook is a material homage from one artist to another.
Ready utilises the medium of photography to resurrect female characters from Gaudier-Brzeska’s novel Hysterical Women–young, ambitious figures, the artist’s alter egos, defeated and outcast by the patriarchal order of the world. Through her work, Ready brings the writer back to life, allowing her to tell her story once more, almost exactly a century since her passing.
The black & white images, frequently out-of-focus and blurred, masterfully depict inner struggles, feelings of oppression and desperation, and the slow descent into overwhelming madness. However, amidst the darkness, glimpses of hope and fervent energy subtly emerge—dancing figures, a couple holding hands, a close-up of a fern, a symbol of rebirth. As the book progresses, the images intensify in their frantic and abstract nature, representing the loss of control and the relentless progression of mental illness.
Selective, trilingual writing from Gaudier-Brzeska, including journal entries, fictional stories, various letters, and a last will, is interspersed among Ready’s photographs on archival yellow pages. The texts themselves reveal a desperate desire for emancipation, defying grammatical correctness and punctuation rules, with words occasionally floating in different directions or overlapping. It seems as if the tormented woman was truly free only through her writing.
“What a hideous cage this world is,” Gaudier-Brzeska once lamented. Her life was an endless battle against ‘windmills,’ confronting depression, psychosis, and the intangible grip of male-dominated social norms. Despite her tenacious efforts, liberation eluded her grasp. The first photograph in the book captures a seated woman holding a mirror in the place of her face—an individual devoid of identity, invisible and insignificant. In contrast is the final image–the sole surviving portrait of Gaudier-Brzeska. The picture, following Ania Ready’s insightful biographical essay on the writer, reaches back to the days of Sophie’s youth still full of optimism and hope, so palpable in her pose and facial expression. Through this absorptive book, Ready grants voice and integrity to the resilient, forgotten creator, at last bringing her out of the shadows of history.
Ania Ready: I Also Fight Windmills has been published by VIKA Books.
BOOK BLISS
Book Bliss is a quarterly gateway to the sublime world of art publications. Each article offers a curated selection of publishing gems, where the books’ aesthetics are as compelling as the narratives within. Whether you’re an art enthusiast, a photography addict, or a fan of beautifully designed printed matter, Book Bliss is your source of visual inspiration and literary delight.
We’re bringing you four exquisite photo books, each weaving a tale of wandering. These journeys, both internal and external, mirror the quest to navigate timeless currents and affirm one’s place in the world. Whether it’s the empty highways of the American Southwest, a quiet seaside town in England, or the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean embracing Polynesian islands, these routes become metaphorical paths of self-discovery and cultural immersion. Within the pages of these publications, the narratives capture the essence of getting lost and finding oneself anew, resonating with the nostalgia of measuring the passage of time and our role within it.
