Photographer Genea Barnes Releases Art Book on Ghost Bike Images

Photographer Genea Barnes is releasing an art book featuring her Ghost Bike art. Ghost Bikes are bicycles that have been painted white and placed near a location where a cyclist was killed. Barnes has traveled to over 50 cities photographing these bikes. The book has two parts. The first part chronicles her travels with journals and snapshots of the bikes. The second part displays Barnes's memorial art: Ghost Bike images, and photo montages that combines the Ghost Bike images with studio-shot models to represent fallen cyclists. The book is hardcover, 10.25in x 10.25in x 0.75in, and is 143 pages.

Each year, the US sees more than 600 bicyclist fatalities, and more than 50,000 bicyclists report injuries. Ghost Bikes symbolize the need for drivers and cyclists to be more aware of their surroundings. Barnes lives in Brooklyn, New York and is from San Francisco, CA.

"I started photographing Ghost Bikes because you can pass a memorial hundreds of times and eventually forget what it represents," said Barnes. Over time, many Ghost Bikes have been removed. "I hope this project and my book will help raise awareness, and enable the memorials, their sentiment and their impact to live on."

In 2010, San Francisco Bay Guardian readers voted Barnes best emerging artist. She has exhibited her photography in world class art hubs like New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Milan. Her current projects explore death, decay, and facets of what is left behind.