Scar Tissue

This haunting first monograph by Israeli-born photographer, Assaf Pocker, Scar Tissue reinvents photographic portraiture as a medium for communicating the deepest and darkest of human emotions. The artist's methodology is entirely focused on the cultivation of relationships: meeting with potential models one-on-one, sometimes for years, to talk and share mutual experiences of suffering, ultimately building a deep trust. It is this trust that allows the artist to capture the raw emotions surrounding human suffering and survival in this collection; it is the intense vulnerability of his subjects and the compassion between artist and model that unite the images in this powerful collection. Images that might appear difficult to view at first become captivating – their beauty lying in the artist's skillful use of light and shadow in black and white, the immense care in the printing of the images (which gives them an even more poignant relevancy) and ultimately in the intense beauty of the portrait subjects themselves. The images are assembled from a much larger collection that took well over six years to complete, and decades of artistic and emotional preparation. The results are masterful, representing some of the finest work by an artist at the apex of his creativity and technique. Scar Tissue is beautifully printed in duotone with a double varnish, and bound in rich Japanese linen. The first edition is limited to 1,000 casebound copies.