JTF (just the facts): Published in 2024 by Commune Press (here). Softcover (20.4 × 30.5 cm), 232 pages, with 98 color photographs. Includes essays by Prema Goet and the artist. Illustration and titling by Alex Coxen. In an edition of 500 copies. (Cover and spread shots below.)
Comments/Context: Brian Merriam travels to the most remote corners of the world to photograph rarely seen landscapes and celestial phenomena, from the Aurora Borealis and total solar eclipses to lush jungles. He has no formal training in photography and is self-taught. In his early teens, he got into skateboarding, which led to filming and editing skate videos on old hi-8 video cameras, and on to pursuing a degree in transmedia studies. Right after school, he spent half a decade playing in various touring bands, eventually moving to photography as his main creative medium.
In his practice, landscape, color, and form serve as both subject and metaphor, while aiming to evoke feelings of loneliness and longing. Merriam’s mother was diagnosed with cancer when he was six months old and passed away just before he turned sixteen; he says that his mother’s illness became the defining thread of his identity. And then in his 30s, just as he started to get a grasp on things, his father took his own life, providing another devastating loss. Processing his father’s death led Merriam to study different modes of spirituality and ritual, which then translated into his art practice.
Merriam has spent the past seven years working on this photobook, which was released last year in collaboration with the Japanese publisher Commune Press. Titled The Absolute Recedes, it is presented as “a union of the universal and the personal.” Working on this project, Merriam was able to evolve his traumatic personal experiences into a greater awareness of, and a deeper relationship with, the universe at large. He traveled around the world, “in search of places whose power and complexities could act as mirrors for what was occurring internally.”
The Absolute Recedes is a softcover book. It has an orange cover with debossed ornament and the title in an illustrated font is placed in a semi circle; this design immediately hints at a mystical element. The book opens with an introduction by the artist, followed by an essay by Prema Goet, a visual anthropologist at the Oxford Center for Hindu Studies. The pages for both texts are illustrated with colorful calligraphic borders and ornaments. All of the photographs are printed full bleed, and there are no page numbers, captions, or any other design elements, immersing the viewer into a continuous visual flow.
The photographs in The Absolute Recedes were shot in various parts of the world, depicting powerful places and natural phenomena, and were brought together in a narrative that blends them into one. One of the first spreads pairs a close up of a spiral pinkish fern and a hill with trees enveloped in a fog. Throughout the book, the photographs move between closeness and distance. There are pictures of clouds over mountains, water droplets, spider webs, trees, thunder over mountains, the northern lights in shades of green, etc. These elements also offer mythological links and references. Seen together, they create a wide ranging exploration of similarities and connections found within the natural world at various scales, and the ways in which their contemplation can affect the human soul. In this manner, Merriam’s photographs attempt to transcend spirituality and magic.
As we move through the book, there is a sense of both distance and familiarity. The middle section of the book refers to what Merriam calls “negative existence”, and is printed on a slightly glossy paper stock, reminding us of hallucinatory states, with images that swirl with color and texture. As the pages turn, the visual flow of the book represents a cycle, making a full circle.
In the past few years, there have been a number of notable photobooks reveling in the wonders of nature. One of them, When Red Disappears by the Dutch artist Elspeth Diederix (reviewed here), captured striking underwater scenes, and was also printed on black paper. And in his book Nightairs (reviewed here), Samuel James reminds us how delicate fireflies actually are. Merriam’s book offers a a similar kind of fascination with nature, but also connects that feeling of grandeur to both a personal spiritual experience and the breadth of the universe. In this way, Merriam’s book is an embodiment of lived experiences.
In the end, The Absolute Recedes is an unpretentious and subtly elegant publication, enlivened by thoughtful sequencing and editing. It is a poetic story of observation and perception, of looking at the obvious and seeing something more.
Collector’s POV: Brian Merriam is represented by Tappan in Los Angeles (here). His work has little secondary market history at this point, so gallery retail likely remains the best option for those collectors interested in following up.
