Unique Wetplate Collodion Tintypes
7”x7” and 12"x12" aluminum plates
Artist Statement
“God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of "parties" with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear…the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
This series has become a reflection of my own struggle with being a shy introvert who seeks connection, yet more often hides or "puts on" what I think others want of me. Anxious, self-conscious, awkward. I have made literal our societal programming to pack away those "unappealing" qualities, felt by many but hidden. In our cultural history, the person with the bigger personality and the biggest mouth is often the most prized. They are the squeaky wheel that gets greased. Those who struggle with expressing their thoughts and feelings are told they are not good enough. Or, more tragically, they are simply ignored. The "less thans", must box away our fragile hearts, affix the correct face, and head out to try and be noticed.
Artist Statement
Man, Gods, and Other Myths
Wetplate Collodion Tintype Photographs or Layered Ambrotypes - 5"x7" & 7”x7”, Framed- 14”x14”
Visions of modern men and their mythologies.
Born from an appreciation for the strength of the male form, Man, Gods and Other Myths explores its classic beauty through the stories and characters of our past. Striving to capture the essence of the subject, the scenes are simple and direct. The ethereal quality of the wet-plate process combined with the statuesque formality of the subjects recalls the Greek concept of kouros: a vision of ideal beauty, piety, honor or sacrifice. Embodiments of the gods made manifest in flesh. These are glimpses of modern men before us, but also a mythologizing of all men through time.
Artist Statement
In Relationship
The human body is beautiful…
It is hard and soft, it has elegant lines, and it has the ability to convey emotion without words. I strive to capture those emotions — strength, vulnerability, loneliness — through my male subjects. Everywhere, I fell our society's anxiety about our bodies, a shame with a stranglehold upon us since the beginning of time. From the parable of Adam hiding his nakedness with the nature around him, to you and me doing the same with fabric. What is our relationship with those things that hide our mortification? Is that relationship affording us freedom, or subtly programing a deeper discomfort? What makes it so ingrained in the human experience?
In this series I use a clean and classic style to lay bare "ideal" people experiencing emotions about their bodies just as each of us does. I wanted images that viewers can experience without feeling shocked or assaulted…to draw them in and start a conversation with them…first about their feelings on someone else's nakedness and then about their own relationship to their own.
