Facing the Mirror
Through portraiture, artists can tell a story about individual human experience, character and circumstances. Significant episodes within a life may be documented, commemorated, memorialized. When an artist chooses to face the mirror, or the lens, it is often with the intent to chronicle an important event with their own reflection.
On the morning of January 4, 1993, I was thirteen years old and home alone, nursing a head cold. In the kitchen, I leaned over and breathed deeply from the soothing steam of a tea kettle I had placed on the stove. Moments later my clothing caught fire, and I was badly burned over much of my body. While I survived the accident, I have endured much physical and emotional pain in the nineteen years since.
My photography practice has been mainly centered upon documentary work for commercial publication; beautiful, formal compositions of softly illuminated flora and families and the like. On January 4, 2012, however, I took off my clothes and faced the lens. These self-portraits are at once carefully crafted figure-studies; essays in contrast, texture and subdued color, while at the same time they are undeniably gruesome revelations of an event that has molded the contours of my consciousness as much as it has my skin.
Making this series of photographs has opened a door for me artistically, through which I am eager to explore new territory. With relief and trepidation I step off the precipice of my own past and find that I am levied by my vision and creative practice.
On the morning of January 4, 1993, I was thirteen years old and home alone, nursing a head cold. In the kitchen, I leaned over and breathed deeply from the soothing steam of a tea kettle I had placed on the stove. Moments later my clothing caught fire, and I was badly burned over much of my body. While I survived the accident, I have endured much physical and emotional pain in the nineteen years since.
My photography practice has been mainly centered upon documentary work for commercial publication; beautiful, formal compositions of softly illuminated flora and families and the like. On January 4, 2012, however, I took off my clothes and faced the lens. These self-portraits are at once carefully crafted figure-studies; essays in contrast, texture and subdued color, while at the same time they are undeniably gruesome revelations of an event that has molded the contours of my consciousness as much as it has my skin.
Making this series of photographs has opened a door for me artistically, through which I am eager to explore new territory. With relief and trepidation I step off the precipice of my own past and find that I am levied by my vision and creative practice.
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