Photography Has Been My Refuge
My love of photography guided me to photograph underwater. I have always been drawn to water. It's the creative tool that has inspired me, given me purpose, and, thankfully, given me direction. My photo work gives me space to understand complex emotions.
Some Things I Can't Explain
Amid life-changing events, questions inevitably arise: “Will things ever be normal again?” “When will things settle down?”
These inquiries reflect a sense of disconnection from oneself and one’s environment. The cocoon of reality is broken. Once we glimpse our construct of reality, the urge to retreat is instinctual. Our natural sense of security has us believing that we control our bodies and environment and that entropy does not apply. A break in this reality is an opportunity to see past its smooth façade, past the illusion of control and permanence, allowing individuals to examine the principles that govern mind and behavior.
Glimpses of “the way things are” escape despite the struggle to maintain the pretense, keeping the compelling vision of hope real. Seeing past that veil reveals the fragility of being alive, the simultaneous fear and freedom of understanding that tomorrow is not promised.
Published: 2014We Are Not Made Of Wood
The form is neither rising or falling but is awkwardly in-between. Imbued with experiences of losing control, creating parallels between themes of fragility and confidence. This series is an attempt to capture the strength it takes to be helpless and out of control. Their circumstance often overshadows the tenacity of one’s will. The photographs stylistically pull from master post-impressionist painters. The soft-focus underscores the abstract quality relying on movement and form, similar to Vincent Van Gogh’s paintings. His paintings were not only about the subject but, more importantly, the mood he was looking to create.
The series was awarded the Contemporary Talent 2012, Photography Category by the François Schneider Foundation.
Published 2012
I Put on My Rib and Collarbone
We try to repress feelings of past (traumatic) events, putting them aside to go on with our lives. These events inform our identities; they are unseen and sometimes forgotten, yet the feelings stay with you — they mold you. Becoming an unwanted friend. A friend who tangles you within a (suffocating) cocoon of emotion. These feelings do not need to govern you. When a (un)invited reconciliation is extended, it is a plea to untangle ourselves to be resilient.
This work signifies a settlement with our identity. Each composition is selected to be neutral, the sliver of space between ascending and descending. Representing the singular struggle with our emotions — an experience we all share.
What I Haven't Told You
How others perceive us unknowingly causes us to judge ourselves. With an unconscious desire to belong, we alter ourselves, deciding what is acceptable and what is not to present to the world. Over time, we unconsciously disown parts of ourselves in order to belong.
This disownment causes an emotional conflict. As we suppress our unwanted characteristics, not only do they persist, but they amplify, until they become the loudest thing that we emote and cannot hear. This overpowers others, as they can only hear what we are trying to suppress. And they begin to speak softly—so softly that we can no longer belong.
This series shows the disagreements between our emotions and the paradox as it appropriates the figure
Published: 2019