Artist's Statements
Dreamscape, 2023
Dreamscape is a collection of both digital and mixed media collages that aim to form what seemingly could be one image, but intentionally confuse the viewer using a combination of depth, perspective, abstracted colors and shapes. Initially, the works were created by cutting apart dark room prints, and setting them against color-aid paper. This technique has been translated to a digital workspace, by scanning my film, and cutting them apart in photoshop. My decision in colors often stems from sections of the images used in the collage. With photoshop and the dropper tool, I’m able to select and use colors from a single pixel in the image.
These works were created in an attempt to reflect the confusing landscape I experience in my dreams. This landscape combines exact locations and people from my memories, but mixes up years and timelines. When researching the process of sleep and dreaming, I found that there is no one reason why we dream. The majority of studies concluded dreaming helps us consolidate and analyze memories. I often have dreams that consist of me searching for my father, who died in 2019. These dreams leave me with a simultaneous comfort and melancholy feeling. I wanted to create images that replicated this feeling, and provide the viewers with work that is both familiar and unsettling.
Homesick, 2018
Homesick focuses on my parents’ home where I grew up, my relationship with my body, and my search for acceptance from other people rather than from myself. In my teen years and early adult years, I struggled with my mental health, but it was kept a secret from my family, friends, and in many ways myself. Through therapy and family support, I have begun to accept my depression and my harmful relationship with my body, which has allowed me to explore these conflicts through my work. Seeing artists like Jen Davis explore her own relationship with her body was extremely powerful and important in the work’s development. Using the home where I was raised and grew up in, as a metaphor for myself, and photographing the people who I seek acceptance from, has allowed me to explore where these issues stem from, and how to continually live with them.
Throughout this body of work, I have created portraits of family, romantic partners, and myself. These portraits are not always literal; I often will use the spaces the people inhabit to represent them. A large majority of the spaces are from inside my family home. These portraits, or metaphorical portraits, are used to show both the chaos and beauty within everyday life, all during the process of recovery. The process of recovery with mental health is long and often painful, but there are beautiful moments. Many of the photos feel still and quiet, while others are more provocative. This tension between the two is intentional to show the complications of finding acceptance within oneself, and to show the reality of how mental health affects everyday life.