Self Portrait as Performance

My performance-based photography is a meditative process.  A frame is created in which suffering, awareness, sexuality, and letting go become evident. In short, I am embodying my experiences as a conscious being on this plane. The moments of my life are recreated through symbols, such as bandages, mirrors, hair & so forth. I think of time traveling to the moments wherein the initial experience occurred and I project that, I re-experience it and I let it live on its own as an image.

Rise Above

2005

Rise Above All was developed as a confrontation with my physical form or body dysmorphia . It was an exercise in accepting my body as the container for my energy. Using hair, the context of nature and light I demonstrated the duality of delicacy and strength. 

Time Heals Nothing

2008

Title is a reference to Sopor Aeternus & the Ensemble of Shadows : "Résumé lyric

Time Heals Nothing consists of photographs of slept in beds. The rooms are absent of doorways; Windows are present and suggestive of escape toward inner reflection, thoughts and dreams.  The unmade bed serves as a reminder of the daily ritual of the portal through which our consciousness meets the unconscious.

In this state the unconscious mind becomes free of one’s boundaries and limitations. This series is evidence of the space where these abstract intangible experiences occur. It is a reoccurring cycle of our lives that cannot be ignored; time will not heal what is neglected because the motion of time is constant, until death.

You're like them; not he

2008

            As a child I would gaze at other children as mysterious individuals. I have switched that light onto myself to inspect my identity as a person.  One's body, gender, life paths, and death have all been preoccupations of mine.  We have created our identities accordingly with the yearning to be accepted for the whole of our being.  With that desire we have suffered, rejoiced, and grown thicker skin to bitterness. We are found on a dividing path of choice in which we take leaps, steps and falls. With destination in mind similarly to one another, we stand alone within an objective psyche.

Second Statement You’re like them; not he is a body of work about destination and journey. The figures are on symbolic paths with our shared destination to attainment, tranquility, and acceptance. The title suggests the viewer of the presented work is like the figures to their side.  The viewer is in the same position as the figures, a play on photography , time/reality as a continuous occurrence. The work also comments on gender separation, male, female in connection to the center figure, a duality of masculine, feminine as a form of completion and unity.

Red & Blue

2007

We've Got Five Years

2010

Title is a reference to David Bowie, Five Years. lyric

We’ve Got Five Years is a triptych about the weight of identity, the time spent with the fluidity of who I am. It is a reflection of the relationship I had during this hair growth. Handling a situation symbolically through the performance. Understanding the time as well as the role it played in my life. 

How To Build An {X|X}

2006

How To Build An {X|X} Is a collection of photographs through which fractions of my body remains in comparison to another’s. Both bodies are incomplete. The building of both of these figures through parts attempts to revive and reassemble the two figures who are no longer in unity. The title is also a reference to the missing aspect of the XY chromosomes with the absent photographs of their physical properties. The figures are constantly incomplete they remain in X_|X_ absent of a variable for completion.

Saturday Through Sunday

2013

Saturday Through Sunday is a performance-based series of photographs of myself consisting of before and after I prepare to leave the house and begin the day. The performance entices the viewer to ask, “Who am I, really?”  Are we who we construct? Each sitter looks across the way sensing the person who was resting on the opposite throne. I have often felt that I am not certain of my identity, at times seemingly just out of reach of true, honest self-awareness. Photographically the subjects will never meet, being on two different planes of existence, two different trains of thoughts and on different spatiotemporal planes never to integrate.

Self Portraiture, A Narrative

2013

Self Portraiture, a Narrative The narrative images are a depiction of my gender and sexuality. Being gender variant I do not limit myself by the commonly expected roles one should have by means of dress or behavior. The beauty of nature and what is natural is an ever-present interest of mine. It is a reminder of decay, that death is present; it is motivation to express oneself fully without the regard and limitations of others.  The phallic beer, with the relation of the androgynous character in the background is suggestive of the influence of sexuality. The self questioning and reflective process experience through time is demonstrated with the length of hair. All of which is followed with ones clear self-recognition and observation by the means of the mirror, which also comments, on the superficial aspects of queer upkeep. As well as the juxtaposition of the intimate relationship of the two subjects in mutual vulnerability. Above all is the image and figure of what they see, desires in which is the other aspect of their sexuality. {pan-sexuality}

How Much Do You Love Her?

2014

How Much Do You Love Her? After a hiatus from photography, I began to conceptualize a body of work under the influence of loss and gender roles. Trying on the several articles of clothing to cope with the concept of losing someone. Putting on the skin of another as the only available form of physical touch and comfort. This series came to be after my mother had given me a few bags of clothing; hers and my sisters to donate. Being someone of curiosity I began to put the clothing on myself and wondered how it would be If I were to lose them at this point of my life. Having lost my father at a young age has kept the notions of death and loss on the front page of my subconscious. I wondered if I would wear the clothing from time to time not as a symbol of my sexuality or to challenge the social norms but to find some kind of comfort. Death can be an invasive event on the living that forces one to confront the passing of another. We must deal with all the remaining items a person had possessed and distribute them, sell them, trash them. It is a transfer of energy being reassigned to another like talismans from a previous owner. In essence some of that life force lingers, it puts in question the physical body and what the values in the possessions we acquire are as we experience loss and death.