Series: Memories Between Earth And Sky.
Archival pigment print mounted on aluminium Dibond.
Edition of 3
40.6 x 50.8 cm / 16 x 20 in
40.6 x 50.8 cm / 16 x 20 in
Hand-signed by the artist, with title, date, and edition number inscribed in ink on an archival label affixed to the reverse side of the mounted photograph
© The Artist
The decision that makes the picture is the turned back. Idun-Tawiah photographs the man from behind, in a navy pinstripe suit, as he lifts a woman off her feet; she is carried against his chest in a gingham blouse and white ankle-strap sandals, one leg swinging free. Their faces meet in profile at the top of the frame. Because we are denied his expression, the whole burden of feeling falls on posture and grip, on the arm hooked around his neck and the sandal dangling into empty air.
The setting is stated plainly, as the thing itself. A yellow colonial façade fills the background, its shutters and jutting balcony brackets painted a chalky blue, an enamel sign reading HOTEL DU PALAIS, RESTAURANT, BAR fixed to the wall at left. A potted palm and a fat yellow urn anchor the arcade below. Idun-Tawiah lets the architecture be flatly, frontally present, a grid of ochre and blue against which the diagonal of the lifted body registers with real force.
The moment is the ordinary miracle of street photography relocated to a staged scene: a gesture that would be gone in a second, held. Everything is edge-aware. The couple sits low and to the right; the building’s horizontals run clean across; the swinging foot finds its own pocket of space. It is a formalist’s picture that happens to be about joy, and it trusts the frame to carry both.