Incision

by Alice Attie

Visual artist and poet Alice Attie produced an outstanding series of photographs on the meeting place of art and medicine. Documenting some of the most precarious surgical procedures of modern medicine, Attie applied her extraordinary sense of photography to produce unbelievably tender images of men, women and children in otherwise terrifying states of vulnerability. During craniotomies, organ transplantation, tumor removal, surgical procedures to correct congenital deformities, Attie was present at dozens of procedures over three years resulting in pictures that show what we never see, or want to the body in its most fragile state. With light reminiscent of Caravaggio illuminating the deeply intimate views of her subjects, Attie’s awe and respect for both the surgeons and their patients is unmistakably clear in her tough and intense photographs.

Hardcover

Published September 1, 2006