Artist Statement
In my journey as an artist, I have discovered that I have never found answers to the things I’m searching for in my photographs or videos, but rather more questions. In what started as an escape, my photography offered me a different world to explore. One I was liberated in, where I could be myself. Queerness was beautiful, valued, and accepted. Self-portraiture was my medium. I am the art.
I am inspired by my own introspections, and how my realizations about the world don’t dim my light. I persevere, but still relish in it for a little bit. My endeavor is to explore my discomfort and discontent. My intentions with the camera are selfish.
This body of work began with an occurrence over the Summer of 2024 where I was invited by someone very close to me to participate in a yoga pose called the “fish pose”. This is a backbend with the legs still attached to the floor. This pose opens the chest, allowing the heart to be the only thing being raised to the sky. In this incredibly vulnerable position I held for more than five minutes, it revealed to me a greater realization of my potential when I opened myself up, and how much I have been trying to protect myself. In what was meant to fix my posture by this person who was watching me slouch on the couch, a greater epiphany awoke inside of me. Why do I slouch, and what am I truly trying to protect my heart from? What is this portal that opens when I do the fish pose?
By combining analog photography and performance, I search to question and redefine how my body interacts with space, and how it can be both bound and liberated, connected and fragmented. With each frame, I explore identity, autonomy, and transformation.
Using a 35mm camera to aid in my performance documentation offers a perspective within itself. I can not see the work until it is developed. I can not see myself until my fibers are stripped raw and I am asked to search for a meaning aside myself. I am not developed until this work is done.
I am inspired by my own introspections, and how my realizations about the world don’t dim my light. I persevere, but still relish in it for a little bit. My endeavor is to explore my discomfort and discontent. My intentions with the camera are selfish.
This body of work began with an occurrence over the Summer of 2024 where I was invited by someone very close to me to participate in a yoga pose called the “fish pose”. This is a backbend with the legs still attached to the floor. This pose opens the chest, allowing the heart to be the only thing being raised to the sky. In this incredibly vulnerable position I held for more than five minutes, it revealed to me a greater realization of my potential when I opened myself up, and how much I have been trying to protect myself. In what was meant to fix my posture by this person who was watching me slouch on the couch, a greater epiphany awoke inside of me. Why do I slouch, and what am I truly trying to protect my heart from? What is this portal that opens when I do the fish pose?
By combining analog photography and performance, I search to question and redefine how my body interacts with space, and how it can be both bound and liberated, connected and fragmented. With each frame, I explore identity, autonomy, and transformation.
Using a 35mm camera to aid in my performance documentation offers a perspective within itself. I can not see the work until it is developed. I can not see myself until my fibers are stripped raw and I am asked to search for a meaning aside myself. I am not developed until this work is done.
