All images © Susan Kae Grant, courtesy of MW Editions, shared with permission
August 4, 2026 BooksPhotography Kate Mothes
A house spins out of control in a wind storm, animals loom large in the imaginations of children, and mysterious creatures lurk in the darkness of Susan kae Grant’s shadow puppet-like photographs. For more than two decades, the artist has explored the mind’s eye—especially what it reveals when we sleep. In the early 1990s, she began collaborating with a researcher at UT Southwestern Medical Center’s sleep laboratory. Documenting what she saw during her own REM cycles led her to develop a vocabulary for her dreams, which she continues to draw on in her studio practice.
Forthcoming this autumn from MW Editions, Grant’s book Night Journey delves into her lifelong fascination with the unconscious. Silhouetted figures and objects seem to float across nearly 100 vignettes that are blurry and cryptic, with edges stretched as if they come from a place we can’t quite reach.
“Through arresting black and white tableaux populated by fantastical creatures, animals, and children in hallucinatory settings, these photographs invite us to traverse the strangeness and chaos of breakneck contemporary life—like the dreams that inspired them,” the publisher says.
See more on the artist’s Instagram, and pre-order Night Journey on MW Editions’ website.
Behind-the-scenes in Susan Kae Grant’s studio. Photo © Richard Klein