Overview

Photo essays of unsettling beauty, ethics, and perception. Thinking Twice is a photographic exploration by Phyllis Crowley that transforms the ordinary and often unsettling realities of food markets around the world into meditations on beauty, mortality, and culture. Shot across Mexico, Vietnam, Spain, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Italy, and the United States, the series captures meat, fish, and other market fare in vivid, painterly compositions that blur the boundary between attraction and aversion. Accompanied by essays from art critic Zachary Fine (""The Unlikely Sublime"") and artist-curator Deborah Hesse (""Epilogue""), the book situates Crowley's photographs within a lineage of artists who confront the ethics and aesthetics of consumption. Fine argues that Crowley overturns Kant's notion that disgust destroys beauty-her lens transforms repulsion into wonder-while Hesse highlights the ecological and moral questions embedded in our food systems. Crowley's accompanying text, Thoughts on the Thinking Twice Series, traces her fascination with food markets since her first encounter in Mexico in 2009, where glistening sheets of meat and seafood hung like tapestries in the light. Her work reveals a tension between reverence for life and acknowledgment of death, between cultural ritual and individual discomfort. Published by OctoberWorks and designed by Jeanne Criscola, Thinking Twice embodies the imprint's commitment to intentional, design-forward publishing. It is a meditation on seeing - urging us, as the title suggests, to ""think twice"" to hold death and beauty, ethics and aesthetics, in our minds at once.

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9781959262091

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Reviews

""There is no slice of empty sky or street in the background. No pastureland or coastline, or cozy interiors. No clear signs of life, even. Just the slimy, gelatinous, and clotted appearance of death and flesh. You'd imagine that these photographs would be seriously ugly, or would arouse more than their fair share of disgust. Instead, they are strikingly beautiful."" -Zachary Fine

Author Information

Phyllis Crowley grew up in New York City. At age 11, her father gave her a twin lens reflex camera, taught her how to use it, and shortly after that, how to print. They worked together in a tiny room in their apartment on an old table with water trays carried in from the kitchen. When she saw the image appear in the developer, she knew there was something magic about the process, and because it was never sparkling enough, she also knew there were secrets to be learned. Crowley is largely self-taught. Her more than forty years of professional experience include freelance photography, newspaper, and magazine work. She taught at Norwalk Community College and the University of Bridgeport. She teaches at the Creative Arts Workshop in New Haven, Connecticut, where she lives with her husband.Crowley has twice been awarded an Artist Fellowship from the Connecticut Commission on the Arts. She has exhibited nationally and her work is in many collections, private and public. She is a member of City Gallery in New Haven and the Silvermine Guild in New Canaan, Connecticut. Her previous book is The Asian Series.

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