photo-eye | BLOG: Portfolio Profile - Beth Moon's Essential Form

Beth Moon, Oak Seed #15, Palladium print, 30″ x 22″, Edition of 9, $4000

This week at photo-eye, we are ecstatic to release a new portfolio from represented artist Beth Moon entitled Essential Form, featuring intimate still lives of sprouting oak seeds printed with Moon's signature precision.

Beth Moon is an artist and photographer who is truly dedicated to the slowness of the medium, primarily choosing to print her large photographic works with the historic palladium process. By using a stable metal, such as palladium or gold, to make prints, Moon ensures not only an exceptional tonal range but also archival stability that renders the image permanent. The conceptual weight of Beth Moon's specific medium has taken a greater meaning in recent bodies of work, such as Portraits of Time and (most recently) Baobab, which focus on some of the most awe-inspiring trees alive. While these recent works have been pointed primarily upwards, featuring the majestic forms and crowns of some of the world's oldest and most unique trees, Essential Form shows us what the artist sees when she looks down, and (spoiler alert!) it seems to be more than most.

Essential Form pays special attention to the object of the acorn. Beth Moon's macro photographs of these small, innocuous bodies that are more known to me, personally, for the sound they make when clattering off of the plastic roof of my car, are quite literally brought to life. Moon's singular focus on the sprouting of these seeds calls into focus not only the unique beauty of each acorn, but also brings forward the possibility that these objects will, perhaps, grow into something of equal or greater beauty.

View more images from Essential Form below, and explore more content about Beth Moon here!