Philosophy
I am an artist and more specifically, a photographic artist, so that I can have the opportunity to help people understand the way I see the world and the way I think about aesthetics. The most important thing to me, in my art, is to use the formal elements of design in a way that is appealing to the eye. More than any subtleties of my underlying concepts, I want people to understand the way that my art is supposed to look. I feel that art is such a personal experience, and when I impose my conceptual vision upon the viewer, it voids their natural connections to, and alienates them from, my art.
My working process involves taking digital photographs of subjects that people have a widely accepted conception of, and skewing that conception. This series takes everyday objects and uses digital manipulation to create space-scapes, which feature bold colors and moments of “How’d she do that?” I greatly value humor, especially in my art, because I feel that it is something that everyone can approach easily. My work is usually playful or cheeky in some manner. I don’t want to scare people off by taking myself too seriously, though that’s not to say that I don’t have great respect for the medium in which I work. I specifically enjoy working digitally, because the freedom that working digitally provides lends itself well to my work of altering preconceived notions.
Throughout my photographic education, I have come to appreciate “the constructed” more than the candid moment. I value the opportunities to get my vision exactly the way I wanted it, rather than the notion of “truth” or “veracity” in what was being portrayed. I identify with artists such as Gregory Crewdson, a master of tableaux photography. When Crewdson makes photographs, his set-ups are essentially as complex as a movie set. I value his work for the intricacies in the composition, in the color choices, and in the exposure and in the positioning of all the subjects. When you are looking at a Crewdson photograph, you understand that that is exactly the way that he intended it to look.
The most important thing to me is that I have fun while I am working on a project, and that my audience understands that and lets themselves have a little bit of fun with art. I want my work to be accessible to everyone, and I hope that in getting to know my work, I can make art a little less scary for people who are not familiar with the art world and a little more fun for people who are.
