Orpheus Descending is a journey through the nocturnal streets of New York, situated somewhere between dream and reality. Lost among steel, stone, concrete, and neon light, the viewer takes the perspective of an anonymous and restless wanderer in this mythical city.
Photographed over a period of twenty years, conducted in an expressionistic composition of color, light, and shadow, the pictures convey a descent into another region. Like the myth of Orpheus, they speak of absence and loss as well as of devotion and beauty – a ballet of empty chairs on a square, a colorfully illuminated passageway... Faces are dissolved in a nebula of color or stare at us like beings from unfamiliar worlds. The appearance of the photographs is very intimate, even though their motifs are usually found outdoors, in public space.
Clayton Burkhart was born in 1968 in Buffalo, New York and grew up in a household of artists. He tried writing poetry before he discovered the camera, later studied photography and film at New York University, and was an assistant to renowned fashion photographers. Since 1992, he has worked in New York, Milan, and Paris as a freelance photographer for fashion and advertising (for example, Dazed & Confused, Uomo Vogue, City Mag NY, Marie Claire, Vogue Homme international, Coca-Cola, Ducati, Lacoste, and Louis Vuitton), as well as his own photo and film projects, which have been exhibited widely, including at the Pyramid Gallery, New York, the Gallery Riis Dam, Oslo, and the Passage du Désir, Paris.

"This is a book to be viewed when alone and in a contemplative mood. It hushes the senses whilst turning up the volume of your thoughts. An enchanting book."
http://www.photonet.org

Artists: Clayton Burkhart

Hardcover
22 x 30 cm
128 pages
86 color illustrations

English
available
ISBN 978-3-936636-87-1
44 Euro
2006