Under the moon and among the trees, floating spider silks and mud-drenched bodies conjure a potent air of possibility in Pia-Paulina Guilmoth’s latest book, “Flowers Drink the River.” Through a series of nocturnal dreamscapes, co-created with nature and her chosen family, the American artist ruminates on the euphoria born from transformation. Page after page, Guilmoth affirms that images are not documents but rather a portal to reimagine another way of life. Here, she tells writer Gem Fletcher about the revelatory act of shaping her reality through photography and why beauty and connection offer resistance to a world full of anxiety and terror.
In the late summer of 2022, artist Pia-Paulina Guilmoth sat in the tick-infested grass behind the orchard near her parents’ home in rural New Hampshire. She wore a ghillie suit and was covered in the same scent eliminator hunters use to disguise human presence. Holding a tray full of crushed apples in one hand and a makeshift thirty-foot shutter release cable in the other, she patiently waited, hoping to befriend a family of deer that wander the forest at night.
“I sat there every night for a week,” Guilmoth tells me about the seemingly impossible proposition. “The deer cautiously approached me on the third night and then darted into the woods. Over the next few nights, they gradually became more comfortable with my presence. The night I made the photograph, I couldn’t see what was happening around me, but a family of deer were eating ripe fruit from my hands.”
Patient acts of co-creation are the beating heart of Guilmoth’s practice. She constructs delicate sculptures with local fauna and spider silk, then waits for the natural world to intervene. Sometimes, a cluster of moths flutter into a scene, or celestial light beams dapple a frame. It’s about seeking out the moment when the ordinary transforms into the majestic. In that sense, photographs are “spell-like” for Guilmoth, magical containers that reach for the surreal, defying logic or convention. This commitment to ritual and process is indicative of Guilmoth’s relentless ambition to conjure the ineffable and ultimately imagine alternative ways of making and being.
Having spent much of her life living in rural towns surrounded by farmland, fields and rivers, there is never a moment when nature isn’t a backdrop or focal point in Guilmoth’s life. “I look to nature for solace, safety and inspiration,” she explains. “If I’m not in the studio, [I’m] outdoors. I like to lie down on the dirt roads and meander slowly through the woods, getting lost for hours. I’m looking for the small details people ignore. Nature is an emblem of resistance and growth, and I’m always striving to adapt and embody those attributes in my life.”
Making “Flowers Drink the River” was pivotal for Guilmoth, personally and professionally. It marked a return to photography after a two-year break and also traces the first two years of her transition. While the project is deeply personal, it resists the diaristic and documentary. Instead, the work’s potency is born from the importance of place, connection and an unwavering pursuit of the visceral. Flash-soaked frames illuminate glistening icicles, secret caves and nocturnal treasures, each scene charged with a brooding animistic energy.
Through hazy, glowing specters and mud-drenched kinks she blurs the lines between dreams and reality. The project has a careful, deliberate edit that builds in intensity while acknowledging the complexity of her experience as a working-class transgender woman living in a small right-wing town in rural Maine.
“My early transition wasn’t all just glitter and happiness,” Guilmoth recalls. “It was the most intense grief I’ve ever experienced. Initially, I was losing my relationship with my family while also having to hide my identity in the place I live for fear of my own safety. As soon as I had the self-confidence to say, ‘This is who I am’ and to start showing myself the care I had neglected for so many years, every destructive force in my life seemed to be 100 times worse than before. I think that is the nature of learning self-love at such a late stage in life. This project is an attempt to shape my reality through photography and resist a world full of anxiety and terror.”
Focusing on moments like the river’s calm ebb and flow or when skin meets stone, or tree bark, we watch as Guilmoth’s protagonists—including her chosen family and closest friends—are enveloped in nature’s protective embrace, reclaiming joy and freedom among the chaos. Guilmoth’s decision to exclusively make her work after nightfall is multifaceted. Darkness heightens the senses, and the desire to rebel is more potent. The night becomes a conduit for letting go, while setting the stage for performance without constraint. Shooting at night is also a practical decision for Guilmoth, a mode of self-protection against the very real threat of transphobia in her town.
Historically, nature has been a safe haven for Queer people, a place free of judgment and conformity, where diversity is not just celebrated but crucial to survival. “Flowers Drink the River” builds on that sentiment, holding up a mirror to the complexities of interiority and finding one’s place in the world. Evoking euphoria is more than a fantasy, Guilmoth explains: “I have to believe in magic to survive.”