Eleven
This is Dek Unu Magazine. In Esperanto, dek unu means "eleven." Eleven images from a single artist. Eleven artists in eleven solo issues in each publication year. Dek Unu publishes the work of a new artist-photographer in each issue. The artist's work and words are featured in individual focus as the sole purpose for each issue of the magazine. Unlike other arts and letters magazines which might look for work from a variety of artists to support an editorial staff's theme, at Dek Unu, theme and imagery are always each artist's own.
Photography has always been about time. Even the most unremarkable family snapshots are all about preserving moments, and, as relics, the faces and places become more interesting as they age. Photography has also been about motion. Cartier-Bresson’s iconic “decisive moment” image shows that Parisian guy, leaping, but frozen in mid-air, above his shadow reflected in the famous Paris mud puddle. Time? Motion? Artist Amy Heller’s extraordinary black-and-white photography is about both.
Inspired by a vintage image from 19th century experimenter Étienne-Jules Marey, and equipped with a foot-pedal controlled strobe, Heller started her own quest to create images that, in their liminal, surreal, and surprising complexity, let us see the unseen. Her experiments turned into an M.F.A. degree, a thesis on the history and impacts of human locomotion photography, and her own extraordinary portfolio: Time/Motion Study Multiples.
Her Multiples start with her archive of time sequence panoramics (all analog) that connect with the ideas of the Cubist and Futurist painters, with photo pioneers Marey and Muybridge, and with more recent sequenced image innovators such as Gjon Mili, Barbara Blondeau, and Andrew Davidhazy. Using her earlier work as fuel, she begins to “play,” creating digital collages that combine, overlap, and layer the past to create new works of art in a rectangular format. As skilled a practitioner as she is, and as complex and technically demanding as this kind of photography can be, Amy Heller eschews mathematical precision in favor of “happy accidents.” For her, the process is the point and every image is an adventure.