Photo artist Deborah Samuel’s lyrical images reflect the frailty of life.  Elegy, her upcoming exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum, features more than 30 haunting photos of afterlife bones and shells, created with clinical precision. (Above: Cobra II, 2011)

-Barred Owl, 2012

Ten of the photographs are specimens from the ROM’s own collections.  The exhibit, opening March 31, is part of the 2012 Contact Photography Festival, with more than 1,000 artists and photographers showing work in 32 Featured Exhibitions and 134 Open Exhibitions  across the Greater Toronto Area.

-Armadillo V, 2011

The work pares modernist photography literally and technically to the bone. Elegy embraces the Brancusi ideal of pure form, of image refined to its essence . . . – exhibition notes

-Armadillo VI, 2011

-Dolphin I, 2011

Samuel was born in Vancouver and raised between Toronto and Adare, Ireland.  She trained at Limerick College of Art & Design and Sheridan College, Oakville, Ontario.   A one-time commercial artist, Samuel now works exclusively in fine art.  She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Deborah Samuel’s website, here.