"Through the experiences and observations of my past few years, I have become increasingly fascinated with the idea of a more minimalist time. One that allows for the honesty's of a person to be revealed and to be seen in daily life. My work mixes an essence of the romanticized and pictorial past with a more modern voyeuristic view in order to create a balance of surreal and truth."

Woman in White

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The urban legend of the Woman in White is one that has been around for centuries and has taken many forms through story lines of different regions of North America. The basic themes of the story are that a woman's ghost roams the roads and rivers at night, hoping to find someone who will take her where she yearns to go, home. Once she arrives, she cries, ‘I can never go home,’ before vanishing. While the story has other constant points to its storyline, this basis of the legend is what interested me most; the idea of tragedy, lost love, wandering, isolation, a hope to return to something rather than to move forward.

This series is based on the idea of the human psyche being in an immovable state while the world around continues to evolve, change, and erase what was once known. The objective is to show, that even as women in our twenties, we are becoming exiles of our own generation, and that in many ways, we hope to cling to something or someone that will never be the same again. With the tintype medium I have chosen for this series, the images take on a ghostly, nostalgic, fragile and imperfect effect, with the knowledge that the image may dissipate over time.

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Briar

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Growing up in a generation of vast technologicaladvancement, a visible progression in society and living has erased a scenictime of less immediacy and more reward. Briar is a correlative study betweenthe female form and the organic shapes present in landscapes that evoke afeeling of connection, belonging, freedom, as well as isolation from the influenceof man. Highlighting the woodland area as the backdrop to these images, I amable to evoke the beauty, unruliness, and delicacy of nature while reclaimingthe female form from a woman’s perspective.

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Secret Garden

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Having grown up and lived in the same house for over 20 years, the half-acre of land surrounding my family home has been a constant place of comfort, escape, meditation, and growth. Unkempt, wild, and secluded, this space has contained my thoughts, experiences, and nakedness, allowing me to be in a place of complete vulnerability with all voidance of fear.

This series is a collection of images reflecting my emotional and physical growth while dealing with the notions of belonging, existence, and individualism. Shot in my sanctuary, a place of isolation, beauty, and liberation from outside influences, Secret Garden explores the female struggle with having a personal acceptance stronger than that of societal pressures. 

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Sediment

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Throughout life, we are granted relationships that shape whowe become. While all individuals in our own right, we share a commoncharacteristic that drives our actions, thoughts, and beliefs: love. Within love,there is a powerful correlation between the pain experienced from pastrelationships and the struggle for happiness and acceptance. Comprehending howmuch has changed in my life over the years has lead to my newfoundunderstanding of true personal growth. This series is based on the idea thatthe destructive nature of love creates a slow, often painful, metamorphosis aswe become the people we are supposed to be; like rock, we erode over time intosomething new altogether. 

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Hazel

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Working for a private collector of photographs, one begins to see the importance of a “vintage” photograph. The image was created, selected, printed, and approved by the artist himself or herself in a different time than what is now the present. To them, the way their photograph was chosen and created was apart of a process and intent that now is often forgot. The artist’s mood, beliefs, environmental and cultural surroundings, all played a part in the process that is frozen in time and cannever be replicated. With the artist’s intentions lost or forgotten, the viewer now sees a photo without context and is left to wonder, while looking upon a fragment of a story. Growing up with passed down stories of my grandmother’s, I was left to view and imagine when opening up a passed down box of family photographs.

My work evokes the “vintage”aesthetic by providing a nostalgic quality that shows the beauty and mystique that happenstance can bring to a photograph; how the flaws and mystery are qualities to respect and contemplate even when the photo itself may have been rejected as a masterpiece. The viewer is left to analyze the photos themselves, and see what they reveal. This, in away, is a tribute to the women of my past and their legacies.

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