HELENA CALMFORS’ Forget Me Not features the artist/photographer’s watercolours and latex selfies with flowers. Banner photo, top: Calmfors by evashedemon @studios_obsidian
Calmfors’ Forget Me Not: unique mix of fetish photography and art
FORGET ME NOT
Photography & Art by Helena Calmfors
(Circa Press: 144pp, 90 colour illustrations, hardcover; publisher’s price £60/$75)
Review by Tony Mitchell
Helena Calmfors is a photographer, artist and performer who originally hails from Sweden but has been based in New York City for more than a decade.
Her work is, as the opening sentence of the publisher’s blurb for her book states, “inspired by the archetype of the dominant woman”.
However, the aesthetic she has developed to express this inspiration is far removed from conventional depictions of the dominant female — even though there’s a substantial amount of latex clothing involved, as well as artistic renderings of various instruments of torment.
The chief differentiator from the conventional is the artist’s extensive use of flowers as props in her photographic self-portraiture. Delicate, mostly pastel-coloured blooms (plus the occasional red rose) are employed to add an unusual element of softness that conflicts strikingly with the hardness of the tight, shiny black latex garments she wears in the photographs.
These self-portraits may well make the viewer curious about the motivation behind this apparent clash of styles.
According to the book’s foreword by Brooklyn-based transdisciplinary artist Ankita Mishra, Calmfors ‘engages in a “malicious tease” with the viewer, her end goal being torment. This desire for control and pleasure in baiting the viewer come from experiences as a queer woman where dates and relationships with other femmes are continually fetishised in the media as ultimate pleasure for men’.
The psychology behind the artist’s intentions is extensively explored in this foreword, which certainly rewards careful reading. Refreshingly, Mishra’s analysis rises above the florid intellectualising that publishers sometimes commission as an introduction to someone’s kinky oeuvre.
It really isn’t included just to artistically legitimise the work in Calfmors’ Forget Me Not — in marked contrast to those volumes of fetish imagery that could often be more succinctly introduced as ‘this person really likes chicks in rubber’.
It’s also important to point out that hooded rubber mistresses bearing flowers are not Forget Me Not’s sole currency. This book represents several distinct stages and aspects
of Helena Calmfors’ artistic oeuvre, such as those identified in the foreword as Tools of the Trade and Dress Up.
Although these titles are not used elsewhere in the book, it soon becomes fairly obvious which images belong under which headings.
If you’re familiar with Circa Press’s previous fetish output, in which Polaroid photography has figured prominently, you
won’t be too surprised to discover that Helena’s work also includes instant photography, used by her for her early self-portraits. Or that this phase of her work is appropriately represented in Forget Me Not.
One particularly nice touch is that, a little way into the book, the paper changes from eggshell to something more like fine cartridge paper, upon which a series of Calmfors’ Tools of the Trade paintings have been faithfully reproduced from her original fuchsia pink watercolours.
This section is followed by a series of digital self-portraits featuring skin-tight black latex fetish garb and bunches of colourful cut flowers that almost jump out from the page.
A further cartridge paper section is devoted to more watercolours, this time depicting female characters, including but possibly not limited to the herself, in solo and triple or quadruple groupings.
These images, rendered in smoky blues, greys and pinks, have been compared with the work of Egon Schiele and Fahren Feingold — artists who might conceivably have come to Helena’s attention while studying at Stockholm University for her BA in Art History and Interpretation of Art between 2012 and 2014.
The second half of Calmfors’ Forget Me Not continues with further selections of digital photos, Polaroid (or at least Polaroid-sized) photos, another group of watercolour women in smoky pink, and what look like some earlier B&W Polaroids.
This emphasis on constant variety within the 144 pages keeps one guessing right to the end of Forget Me Not.
On first browsing this volume, you really can’t be sure which of Helena’s various styles you’ll encounter with the turn of the next page — and the novelty of this does not entirely diminish with subsequent return visits!
All this helps to make Calmfors’ Forget Me Not one of the more unusual, vibrant and stimulating collections of fetish visuals ever assembled between hard covers.
With thoughtful design, plus beautiful printing on two different types of paper that add subtle sensory variations, the part played by the physical book in the overall pleasure of experiencing Calmfors’ work ishould not be underestimated.
As a fetish art and photography monograph, Forget Me Not is truly one of a kind: a highly collectible artefact that deserves a place on any kinkster’s bookshelf and, at this time of year especially, can make a beautiful and desirable treat for oneself, a lover or a friend.
And if you’d like to find out more about the artist, follow the link below to our interview with Helena Calmfors — The Fetishistas’ November Cover Story!
Circa Press: Forget Me Not
Fetishistas Helena Calmfors interview
Helena Calmfors website
BELOW: You Are Not Invited, 2021 by Helena Calmfors: watercolour on paper, 22x30in/55.9×76.2cm
Tags: Artists, Book Releases, Fetish Photography
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