In his largest book to date "The Devil May Care” Aaron McElroy takes his diaristic taxonomy further by incorporating nefarious totems of desire to a new level. Within the tradition of his past works, he continues to look at the female body with a less eroticized view for that of exploring the subject in various states of glancing over that of the gaze. His photographs become passages in which the body is seen in a fleeting form for that of a more deceptively prosaic format. This is when a body does not simply urinate, but elucidates the lurid state of fragmentary meaning in conjunction with that of the enabling properties of totem objects. These totem objects of self-abuse are exemplified through drug paraphernalia become a new facet of still life that does not necessarily condone, nor abdicate responsibility for its presence. The pantheon of 21st still life as seen in heroin packets, dextroamphetamine diagrams, and crack pipes become ubiquitous in McElroy’s world. This is not suggesting a new canonization, but again, a rather personal narrative at a glance and not a gaze. In this capacity, here is where nothing will grow; yet nothing will die because of this lack of genesis. The contemplative reasoning of which creates a true and at times abhorrent state of un-birth and un-death leaving the potential for living in devastated inequality to that of its inherent need for a state of being. McElroy exceeds in his personal and at times obsequious look inward. - Brad Feuerhelm. Published by SUN (Los Angeles). 158 pages, 31 x 22 cm, softcover, SUN (Los Angeles).
