AN ISLAND IN THE MOON
by Jordan Sullivan
Published by Ampersand Editions, 2015

196 pages, 279 plates
6 x 9 in.
Perfect bound paperback

"Form is emptiness and emptiness is form," writes Peter Matthiessen in The Snow Leopard, a classic account of a journey through the Himalayas in search of something that ultimately proves elusive. Citing these words as a point of inspiration, artist and writer Jordan Sullivan presents here a collection of photographs and collages that reads as much like a series of short narrative sequences as it does a book of photography. The photographs, printed in muted tones, evoke emotional states of longing and wonder, yet the relationships between one woman to another and the settings in which they reside remain undeclared. The collages, too, made up of fragmented landscapes and torn book pages, resemble something forming or coming into being. Sequenced and designed by the artist, the book itself alludes to Sullivan's large photographic installations through which the collective message of the work changes with each hanging, or, in this case, with how one chooses to engage the book, making for an exploration of beauty and decay that places the reader somewhere between memory and imagination. 

-Myles Haselhorst, Ampersand Gallery, 2015