ARTIST STATEMENT
My practice is anchored in the question, “Who are we, and how do we know?” I explore through what I know best - myself, my family, and my communities - via photographs, installations, and sculptures. Thematically, my art explores identity; topically, it depicts the physical self, family and community, transgender and queer issues, and space/nature.
My work is mostly comprised of digital photographs. A photograph references a specific time and place. Emphasizing realness through photo-making is an important part of my practice, especially when it addresses identity, transgender issues, and queer issues. In our digital world of infinite subjective truths, highlighting these perspectives is important.
Accuracy is central, rather than precision. A traditionally precise photograph might be a head-and-shoulders shot of a carefully lit subject, in focus, with a direct gaze. An accurate photograph shows the viewer the important part of the subject’s reality. That reality might be the subject’s emotion, their body they way they see it, or the shadow of a secret. The formal qualities of an accurate photograph depend on the perspective being conveyed.
I use a simple digital SLR camera, a tripod, a digital cable release or a ten-second timer, and available or easily-constructed lighting. Similarly, with clothing, props, furniture, and my body, I use what is around. I drive these tools to their maximum potential in a setting until I reach a final image.
Even with ubiquitous cameras, we all have defining moments and truths for which we lack accurate photographs. I construct photographs as a solution to this. Accurate photographs represent personally-known - inherently subjective - truths, while still capturing light particles - inherently objective - in the physical world. This infinite possibilities / finite chaos juxtaposition gives me great optimism and hope.
When my work extends from photography to installation, my goal is to implicate the viewer further into the work, by implicating their body. My installations build a physical context around my photographs, sometimes including body-sized box frames to unfurl mylar photo-transparencies into space, a vinyl backdrop to imply a studio setting under the viewer’s feet, or 500 pounds of rubber astroturf “dirt” to build up a weight more tangible to the viewer’s body than the images alone. The line between subject and subject matter is broken - the viewer exists in the same world as the art. Having stakes for the viewer that feel on the same plane as the work matters.
Sculptures enable the object to live in the present time and place in a way that photographs do not. My sculptures give the objects agency of how they interact with a person’s gaze, situating themselves unavoidably in the field of view.