Emerging experimental photographer, currently based in Athens, GA.
It has been roughly a decade since I began my photographic journey. As a photographer who delights in experimentation with pushing back against traditional photographic processes, my work centers on the exploration and expression of my identity as it relates to my practice as well as my environment. I gravitate towards the relationship between light and textures, the passage and perception of time and space, and the expression of my concept of self through visual takes on materiality and the ephemeral. I am constantly intrigued by human identity as it relates to one’s surroundings – the manifestation and perception of self as influenced by individual experiences, environments, and outside stimulus (light, sound, touch, etc.). We are shaped by and become a part of what surrounds us, and that in large part is what drives my work. Common threads that persist across my body of work include art historic iconographies and religious undertones, the merging of the ethereal and corporeal, and the use of the body as an object in art.
My artistic process is a sort of ritualistic one, oftentimes solitary, of self-expression, conceptualization, and understanding of identity. In addition to this exploration of identity, I am driven by the capabilities of my own skills and the medium I have chosen. Whether it be modern digital rendering and technologies, or the formulaic and tangible nature of film photography, I love to play within my discipline by taking the “rules” of the medium and making them my own, subverting them to fit my narrative and artistic voice. I am captivated by long exposures and ghosting techniques, painting with light, and using colors and textures to represent feelings and concepts that I often struggle to put into words. My work becomes autobiographical in these ways.
I am inspired and influenced by a number of things—the works of other artists and musicians; my dreams, emotions, and the experiences of my past; even those “little moments of magic” that we all experience in the mundanity of the day-to-day. Influential artists include photographers Francesca Woodman, Joann Callis, Sophie Fontaine, Polina Washington, and Erin Graboski; filmmakers David Lynch and Sky Hopinka; contemporary multidisciplinary artists like Joshua Ellingson and Susu Laroche; the bands Radiohead, Japanese Breakfast, Purity Ring, and Portishead; and the moments of magic in mundanity like the textures of fabrics, the way light and shadows dance across surfaces, that feeling that you get when a gentle breeze brushes your skin. The way all these things make up what surrounds me, what shapes me, coalesce into the fuel of the fire that is my body of work.
There are two main goals for my work—simply to allow myself the exploration I crave, to uncover all the parts that make up the whole, and also to resonate in some way with my audience through the viewer’s perception of my intended message. Paul Outerbridge said, “[a photograph] should do something to the beholder; either give a more complete appreciation of beauty, or, if nothing else, even a good mental kick in the pants.” I want my audience to feel something when looking at my work, for it to stir something in their own mind around their own identities, around what makes up the parts of their whole selves just as it does for me. While my work is indeed a personal catharsis, I know that just as we are shaped by what surrounds us, we make up what surrounds others.
