Al Sol: Photographs of Mexico, Cameroon, and Nicaragua
Al Sol: Photographs of Mexico, Cameroon, and Nicaragua
Photographs and text by Stella Johnson
With a preface by Constantine Manos
“Stella Johnson’s photographs are poems weighted with grace, dignity, and compassion. Stella ?rst forged her unique vision in simple Mexican villages where she became part of the fabric of daily life and turned ordinary moments into images of beauty. Her photographs re?ect her caring approach to her subjects and their environment.
“Stella is neither a photojournalist nor a documentary photographer. Rather, her work might be labeled personal documentary, for she brings to it an understanding and an approach which are deep and patient and truly personal.”
– from the Preface by Constantine Manos
“Universal are the ancestral and atavistic rites, collective tasks, at once domestic and mythical, which inform the worlds recreated in her photographs. With a gaze capable of eternalizing an instant, Stella Johnson catches the most ordinary moments and turns them into intimate documents of a unique, ancestral, and eternal being.
“Precisely because they are so common, the images presented here are unique, magical, and amazing. Here the ?elds are not desolate and vanishing; they have become a hortus conclusus that restores our roots, a subtle reminder that men and women are maize, wheat, ?esh, and bones, but also mystery, desire, and yearning. The distant city, an asphalt jungle, a lost and arti?cial paradise, is only a passing dream in this world of reverie, abundance, and hope.” – Michael Schuessler, Barnard College
Published with Wild Greek Press in association with the University of Maine Museum of Art and the Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University, Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
80 pages, 10.5 x 8 oblong, with 52 duotone illustrations
Hardcover, 2008; ISBN 978-0-89101-114-5; $40.00
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Stella Johnson teaches at the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University and at Boston University. She was a Fulbright Scholar to Mexico in 2003-2004, and a Fulbright Senior Specialist to Mexico in 2006, for photographing and teaching, respectively. Her work has been exhibited widely in the US and Mexico.