I think Roger Ballen‘s new book, Boarding House, takes the previous themes he’s explored and winds them into the most coherent vision of his work yet.  It’s dark stuff.  It’s scary stuff.  It digs deep, surfacing forgotten recesses of the psyche, troubled archetypes your mind does it’s best to loose in the furthest and deepest mine shafts of your soul.  But it’s also brilliant stuff, some of the most real and touching work I’ve seen in a while, all at once sublimely terrifying and terrifyingly sublime.

photo: “Fragments, 2005” ©Roger Ballen.

photo: “Cornered, 2004” ©Roger Ballen.

photo: “Boarder, 2005” ©Roger Ballen.