Emma Ressel is a fine art photographer who works primarily with a large format view camera to create surreal still life images. Her photographs are surprising compositions of food, animals, and objects that challenge pure aesthetic pleasure and are unafraid to depict rot, nonsensical combinations of subjects, and subtle, evocative narratives. Ressel’s opulent compositions are born from her fascination with food and curiosity about the natural world, yet the images are cloaked in a macabre, melancholic tone. The photographs oscillate between celebrating bounty and referencing the pain of the artist’s chronic digestive issues to critique the complications of eating in the modern world. Ressel draws on fairy tales and mythology to imagine scenes where plants and animals embody sentient personas. The photographs often mix together real foods and living animals with plastic replicas and taxidermy mounts, positioning viewers in a kaleidoscopic, dreamlike realm where everything is only partially “real.” The photographs urge viewers to tap into their own visceral sensations and investigate what surprising elements delight their senses and draw them closer, and then find at what point will they begin to cringe. Ressel has exhibited in galleries across the northeast as well as internationally, including The Vermont Center for Photography; Red Hook Labs, Brooklyn, NY; Site: Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY; September Gallery, Hudson NY; The Wing Soho and DC, and Artemis Gallery, Northeast Harbor, ME, among many others. Her first monograph, Olives in the street, was published in 2017. Ressel is based in Philadelphia and New York City.