I am an artist who uses digital photography and polaroids to explore themes, and to challenge notions of what photography can be. For the last three years I have been working on two major figurative projects called "Belief" an "Tarot." "Belief" explores the idea of how Greek Mythology continues to influence how folks view themselves, how they are seen, and how they behave. "Tarot" explores the idea of how our anxiety about the present compels us to use rituals to attempt to control or predict the future.
The work harkens back to the Daguerreian Era when photographs were objects and deeply personal and meaningful. My art takes material aspects of these early American photographs and deconstructs them , by folding, punching holes and adding three dimensional objects to them. The work can vary from framed photographs, to videos, to mini-instillations, to small and large table top sculptures.
Holes are sometimes punched as a reaction to Roy Striker who in the 1930s as part of the Farm Security Administration would “kill”photos by punching holes in the negatives. This process also acknowledges that photography does not show us the whole truth. The folding connects them to 19th century photography cases, hides part of the image and ties them more closely to books, letters and other texts.
I add objects to the photographs like glass, hat pins, buttons, pearls and wood to disrupt and to acknowledge the spell of the traditional male gaze. Other objects like salt and live Rosemary are added to create a sense of ritual. Glass is sometimes removed from frames or the images themselves are displayed in glass vessels. This makes the images more vulnerable and makes the work more ephemeral.