Bear Kirkpatrick Captures Evidence Of The Sacred In Stunning, Emotional Portraits

Bear Kirkpatrick is a New Hampshire-based photographer whose dreamlike visions delve into human emotion, memory, and myth. His work is characterized by allegorical, painterly images that blend baroque-style drama with a modern melancholia and passion. The two series featured here are Hierophanies I and II, which are based off of Mircea Eliade‘s theory of the same name. Kirkpatrick explains the term further in the context of his work:

“This study went afield looking for evidence in the modern world of Mircea Eliade’s evocation of the Hierophany, a tear in the fabric of the profane world that showed a glimpse of the sacred world behind it. All that lives and breathes, dies, is part of a cycle of life and death, is a natural part of the profane world.  The sacred world exists as a memory of a place before death.” (Source)

In search of these tears between worlds, Kirkpatrick hiked miles into the wilderness, enduring swamps, mosquitoes, and ticks to find the perfect locations. Once there, he would capture—guided by intuition—the sacred as it briefly emerged through nude figures and the landscape. In postures of rapture and anguish, bodies struggle and recline against trees, in the grass, and between rocks, their actions solemn but mysterious, invoking an ancient language that transforms emotion and spirit into a visceral physicality. Permeating these two series is a sense of isolation, one that comes from a profound sense of heartbreak; but on the brink of myth and the eternal, each figure embodies healing and rebirth.

Visit Kirkpatrick’s website to view more of his stunning work.

Weeping They Conveyed Him In SIlence

Three Days In He Could At Last Hear The Ocean

They Could Take Their Salt From The Ashes

The Truth About God

They Took On The Language Of The Enemy

The Masts Bent To The Water

The Captain Would Find Himself At Last Alone

They Would Fain To Blacken Out The Heavens With Their Bodies

Inside Isaiah God Saw The Worldsheet Burning

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