American Psyche: The Unlit Cave, George Elsasser

By Betsy DiJulio

Hampton Roads-based photographer George Elsasser's encounter with the work of Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung some four decades ago etched a deep and indelible impression on the artist. In American Psyche: The Unlit Cave (Daylight Community Arts Foundation, 2020), Elsasser's new book of photography, the artist constructs metaphorical expressions of Jung's “shadow”. An archetype for that part of ourselves that is unconscious, unknown, unexamined, rejected, or repressed, the shadow in these photographs shot between 2005-2019, refers to the unconscious of the individual as well as the to the collective unconscious of America.

Elsasser has long been interested in the potential of the camera to capture abstract images. Besides the silhouettes and shadowy elements, many of the photographs share in common a saturated primary color palate---though there are also black and white images---geometric angels and divisions, screens patterns, and textures.

One of the goals of the book was to attempt to successfully integrate street photography into what Elsasser calls “a photo book.” Therefore another broad grouping of photographs falls within that genre in which heads are cropped out of the frame. Though Elsasser describes his work as metaphorical, one must be prudent interpreting the images for, rather than headless figures making a statement about identity or loss thereof, Elsasser explains he is often “shooting from the hip” to be less intrusive. Hence, there is no time to carefully compose through his viewfinder.

The book is divided into six chapters: Predicament, Liberty, Scar Tissue, Currents, Innersections (as opposed to Intersections), and Interface. According to the artist, these overlapping rubrics generally relate to the following: aspects of our nation's shameful past: hot button issues of the present moment; psychological and spiritual impetus to look inward; and to look beneath the surfaces of ourselves and others.

Elsasser highly recommends that those who want to “dig deeper” into these images consult the Plate List in the back of the book, for the titles provide oft needed clues into artistic intent. I agree, for an image of a fruit vendor holding an apple in conversation with his female customer takes on new dimensions when seen through the lens of “Adam's fault,” and further when “fault” is considered to be both a flaw and responsibility. Likewise, details within the photographs sometimes constitute the meaning, as when a person of color on the street is seen wearing a tee-shirt emblazoned with an image of George Washington. Elsewhere foreground comments on background and wise versa, much as predella panel beneath a Renaissance painting altarpiece fills in the backstory.

Visually seductive, but also demanding interpretation, Elsasser's work once prompted a professor to urge him to be less obscure, a suggestion that was met with, “Then I might as well write my ideas on an index card.” You won't find any index cards here. No, each viewer must penetrate beneath the lushly beautiful, albeit peeling, splattered, splintered, scarred, and scratched surfaces and peer through the screen or around the divide, while grappling with startling juxtapositions and uncomfortable contradictions. You must shine a light in the cave.

If you need more help than the image titles provide, the closing statement by Deborah McCleod---curator/owner of Chroma Projects Art Laboratory in Charlottesville and former curator, Peninsula Fine Arts Center in Newport News is pure poetry; a work of art in it's own right. So when you flip to the back of the book to seek out that plate list, do not skip over To Dance on an Orb.

American Psyche: The Unlit Cave is available at Prince Books, an independent book seller in Norfolk.