Biography
“We wandered in a frenzy and a dream.” – Jack Kerouac, On the Road.
I have spent my life wandering both loud, crowded city streets and abandoned quiet trails, listening to the voices that came not just from the people surrounding me, but from the bricks, land, trees, and stones. At a young age, I fell in love with the imagery and language of high-contrast black-and-white modernist photography. I connected with the beauty and mystery often found within the landscape images of photographers like Timothy O’Sullivan, Paul Strand, Edward Weston and Minor White.
Growing up in a bi-racial & bi-cultural home, splitting my time between the lively streets of New York and my grandfather’s ranch in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, I felt like an outsider living on the margins of both worlds. In this role as an observer, I found a voice through my camera, turning the gaze of the lens towards both the natural and social landscapes. My artwork tells the story of a wanderer and through my images, I explore the perseverance of the human spirit.
Over the past year, I have begun to experiment with combining the language of black-and-white modernist photography with the use of intaglio press solar etchings and gel printmaking techniques. As a printmaker, the ability to manipulate and engage with my images in new ways due to the use of monoprinting with a hand printing press has helped me to connect with my work differently.
Most recently, I have turned the gaze of the lens inward and have began to explore the performative nature of gender and identity found within portraiture. By layering transparent photographs of the female body with objects found in nature and text, I hope to examine the palimpsest of emotions attached to how we define ourselves and how the viewer engages with this imagery. The series titled, “Horoscopes for the Dead,” is a group of transparent montaged photographs printed on glass. The memento mori is a self portrait created in response to an excerpt from Tertullian’s Apologeticus: "Respice post te! Hominem te esse memento! Memento mori! - Look behind you! Remember that you are but a man! Remember that you'll die!"
