Blue
Blue is a self-portrait series exploring a liminal space between the reality of daily life and the mystery of a deeper self. I long for a feeling of vastness like being held by the ocean. When I’m floating, my body is in complete surrender, but I know below lies infinite darkness and mystery.
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how limiting it is to take on a certain role that defines me in the world. When I step away from the business of life, when I am very quiet and still, I can gently peel and probe at the edges of my reality. There exists an infinite space that is equal parts always surrounding me and just out of reach. Much like standing on both sides of a doorway, I am not who I once was and not yet who I am to become. Within this dark expanse, I search for glimpses of a deeper and truer self and when I catch this reflection, beauty shimmers to the surface.
Encounter
I’d like to create a space for the viewer to be with the questions of: Who am I? Where did I come from? Where do I go when I’m no longer here? Both basic and profound, these questions capture our minds as soon as we are old enough to have the words, and yet the answers are unknowable no matter our years.
In the vastness of these landscapes, I am searching for a mirror within where these questions can exist. The images reflect a visceral world that lives outside of our constructed identities. This liminal space is like the moment before thought begins, the zero that comes before the number one.
Daydream
I wake up at dawn and look into an endless stretch
of horizon where the ocean meets the sky.
There’s not much to do but wander the hallways of my mind.
Looking out and looking in.
Lost in a memory or a story someone once told me
about the way things are
All of my life, I’ve been inching towards kernels of truth
about purpose and contentment.
I’ve been endlessly searching for something.
In the softness of the morning light,
in the gentleness of just waking,
I find the simplicity of breathing in and breathing out
might be enough.
Soma
Soma is a story about the feeling of longing shifting into change. I spent years of my life feeling adrift, like something was on the tip of my tongue but I couldn’t quite remember it. All the while an urge was building within me. I wanted to step into life instead of being an observer. Change begins as a smoldering desire that persists and persists until it reaches a point of ignition. Over thousands of years heat and pressure turn tiny organisms into petroleum and coal into diamonds. I feel the same process happening internally. The visceral, rock-filled landscape was a perfect metaphor for my new beginning.
Inquietude
I’m of a generation taught to follow my dreams, which is a beautiful and seemingly liberating concept. For me, life without constraints causes anxiety. I want to be and do everything. Within this infinity of choice, I freeze. Instead of taking action, hours are spent in an internal struggle. I visualize multiple versions of an idealized life. Expectations form, melt and reform. I hold up what I want for my life and weigh it against what others want, to what they have. I question everything and look for perfect answers that never come. There are moments of respite and clarity and moments of darkness. I search for meaning and identity. I want to stay in the magical world where anything is possible but I know I must face the reality of choice.
Night Wandering
It's in the still of night when I am most awake, in those stretches of silence when the world is at rest and I feel untethered from the pull of slumber. The weight of my exhausted limbs chafe against my unyielding mind, pulling me down into a spiral of night visions that flash across the screen of time passing and memory, leaving me paralyze with eyes wide open. Even with the closeness of the body next to me, the warm and deep slow breaths of contented slumber, I am alone in my night crawling. Wrapped within this state of insomnia, I experience the battlefields of remote and isolated landscapes, negative spaces that feel at once perilous and beautiful. I mark my nighttime expeditions with lightly tread footsteps that lead me toward the glow of darkness. I move forward without respite, untamed and unknowing in my direction.