Sacha Archer's cellsea begins small with a breath that grows out of control, suffocating us in beauty like dark waves crashing into a rocky beach. As our lungs fill, Archer plays a masterful trick on us with the accompanying text, somehow unifying and separating the pieces in wide, pendulum-like swings, making us question everything. This playfulness that often dips into mystery and the absurd is something that he'll continue to do throughout, with great success.
The bliss and violence of the following pieces wage a war that overtakes the rational and burns itself into your brain. After a few passes through this book (printed beautifully by Timglaset Editions) the pieces become primordial symbols, the building blocks of an inner reality that slowly bursts into the external. They often use recognizable elements like letters and symbols, adding to the disorienting effect. After prolonged viewing I began to notice the letters on signs up and down my street begin to "Archer-ize", becoming animated like a lost Jan Švankmajer film. The accompanying texts are a mystery of their own. Whether you choose to view them as the titles of the visual pieces, or as a separate, individual text– the effect is magnificent like watching two parasites endlessly feed on each other, giving us new meanings with every reading. The text deals heavily in juxtapositions with both the visual work, as well as itself. One such example is the brilliant "The Agony of St. Fuck You", bleeds into "Goya at Arby's" that transitions into "The Unfortunate Case of Jesus Christ". Archer's use of humor, contrast, color, violence, and design have made this one of the most enjoyable books I've had the pleasure to live inside this year. and one I will undoubtedly return to often. Archer's work as a whole is among some of the most fresh and exciting currently being produced. He definitely deserves your eyes. I'm eagerly awaiting his next release, to be titled Havana Syndrome, and you should be, too. cellsea was published by Timglaset Editions in an edition of 150 copies. You can purchase a copy of it at this link: https://www.timglaset.com/produktsida/sacha-archer-cellsea Additionally, you can view a free PDF of Archer's previous work, Mother's Milk, also published by Timglaset, here: https://www.timglaset.com/_files/ugd/be28a7_613bf087d154489a9a0050548fbb3f7a.pdf Sacha Archer's website can be visited here: https://sachaarcher.wordpress.com/
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Kristopher BiernatI am in love. Archives
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