Closer - My mother and I, 2001

Elinor Carucci is renowned for sensuous portraits of her family and herself. Closer reveals the breadth of her work, from the erotic to the ethereal, exposing an emotionally honest world flooded with color. Fragments of her life are revealed through family and self-portraits and artful abstractions, making Closer a daring portrayal of the artist's intimate emotional geography.

Carucci's work is first and foremost about the nuclear family, and also touches upon the universality of intimacy and mortality. Her parents, grandparents, and spouse are the central players, each of whom she portrays gently but unflinchingly in her images. Her photographs work with a definite color palette and there is a mesmerizing quality to the serene blues and vivid reds set against the myriad tones of bare skin.

Closer: Photographs by Elinor Carucci is the artist's first monograph. Carucci received the International Center for Photography's Infinity Award for Best Young Photographer in 2001, and earned a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002.