josef chladek

on photobooks and books

Pedro Ramos - Ilha, The Spring Press, 2014, New York

Softcover, edition of 500 copies.
„The photographs in this book could simply function as a love letter to a semi-utopian locale, but above all delve into insularity and some of its underlying characteristics: isolation as privilege/disadvantage; isolation itself and man's interaction with nature and its subsequent destruction.
This body of work is unable to hide the polarizing influence of an upbringing surrounded by an ocean. It is evident in the focus on color and form (both natural and man made), its direct tone and language offset only by subtle gestures towards involuntary architecture and still life.
The elliptical narrative seems to take the viewer back to the beginning repeatedly, avoiding the certainty of conclusion by highlighting the ambivalence of the photographic image according to its presentation.

Pedro Ramos was born in 1982 in Madeira Island, Portugal. He currently lives and works in Sydney, Australia.
"A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image." (Joan Didion)

Order at The Spring Press.

Pages: 72
Place: New York
Year: 2014
Publisher: The Spring Press
Size: 21 x 28 cm (approx.)