Sequencing Anima #4, 2008
digital pigment print on Sommerset rag
73 1/2 x 43 inches; 186.7 x 109.2 centimeters
edition 4/10
At first glance, Elisabeth Sunday’s photographs of the Tuareg seem infinitely more spirit than flesh. Elongated figures swathed in layers of fluid velvety black or crème colored cloth float in front of a backdrop of what appears to be sand swept sky. Despite the sleekly abstract nature of the compositions, and the artist’s exquisitely surrealist sensibilities, these are, in actuality, portraits and Sunday’s subjects communicate as persuasively as the artist herself.
Aside from engendering a profound respect for this ancient nomadic culture, Sunday’s twenty plus years of extended journeys to North Africa and subsequent imagery present a new age vision of what it feels to be, not only, decidedly, magically and powerfully other but decidedly, magically and powerfully human.
Ms. Sunday’s work is included in numerous private and public collections including the Corcoran Art Gallery, Washington DC, University Art Museum at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; Museum of Fine Art, Houston TX; Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris and San Francisco Museum of Art, CA.