Statement
I’m continuing to explore relationships between people and their environments. I like creating images where faces and figures emerge from or recede into the background, and I often wonder, how do we know when we’ve become one with our surroundings?
The portrait is a favorite subject of mine; each face and figure unique. As a photographer, most of my knowledge and experience has been self taught, through trial and error, play, accidents, and experimenting. Since I have a BFA in painting, a lot of how I see the world is not so much through a lens. I want to create photos that don’t appear to be photos, but rather look like paintings. Ironically, where I find my lens often directed is to actual paint itself; layers of color, re-emerging again, pealing, through weathered, rusty layers. And to things like a car seat deteriorating; unfolding, revealing it’s layered textures, slowly over time. These images then become the backdrops for my portraits, and the face, a life and layer to yet another potential story. In the process of making my art, I enjoy playing with interactions between people and elements such as color, texture, line, and form. As I play and create, I begin to think about our inner connectedness to our environment. How does our relationship with our environment change how we’re perceived? What transformations occur in our environment as a result of our actions? When things and beings are juxtaposed, what questions or emotions arise as a result of their relationship? And can we confront our questions and emotions? Or would that require a shift in perspective?
The portrait is a favorite subject of mine; each face and figure unique. As a photographer, most of my knowledge and experience has been self taught, through trial and error, play, accidents, and experimenting. Since I have a BFA in painting, a lot of how I see the world is not so much through a lens. I want to create photos that don’t appear to be photos, but rather look like paintings. Ironically, where I find my lens often directed is to actual paint itself; layers of color, re-emerging again, pealing, through weathered, rusty layers. And to things like a car seat deteriorating; unfolding, revealing it’s layered textures, slowly over time. These images then become the backdrops for my portraits, and the face, a life and layer to yet another potential story. In the process of making my art, I enjoy playing with interactions between people and elements such as color, texture, line, and form. As I play and create, I begin to think about our inner connectedness to our environment. How does our relationship with our environment change how we’re perceived? What transformations occur in our environment as a result of our actions? When things and beings are juxtaposed, what questions or emotions arise as a result of their relationship? And can we confront our questions and emotions? Or would that require a shift in perspective?
