Artist Statement

Photo Series 1-5

As an artist I am drawn outdoors as it is my place of renewal, inspiration, and faith.

When the world is heavy I escape to the beautiful.

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I have used the landscape as my subject matter of choice to bring out and address how multiple photographs, when used in a coordinated effort, has the creative power and resolve to explore memory, perception, and real time accounts of a specific place. Collectively, this body of work has become my own self-portrait and affords me the opportunity to make sense of the world around me. Sometimes life is in focus yet other times it’s blurry, disjointed, and often hard to understand. However, the gift of vagueness is finding purpose in the defined.

My series, Inscape, is a rediscovery of the art of landscape photography. From early Eastern landscape paintings to modern day photography and photomontage, I explore the connection that all of us have to the natural world. Though there is connection to the land, there has also been a dualism in how humankind relates to it. Inherently, the human response to the land is either symbiotic or savage. Ultimately it is up to the viewer and their own interpretation based on their own physical and psychological position. By combining multiple exposures of the same landscape, fractured picture planes are formed and organicism is created. Images are taken using a variety of shutter speeds and then overlayed on top of each other to create one complete work. The final work then becomes not just about the land, but about rekindling what was lost and finding holy reverence once again. Though our communion with creation and its Creator has been fractured it was never forgotten for within the cracks of genuine brokenness true beauty can begin to grow.

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Both present and past time can exist within one shared space and elicit a psychological, emotional response. Our relationship with the land is complex and it ultimately mirrors our culture. Although I use multiple images to create a fractured picture plane, my intent is to create a visually reconciled relationship with the land and share my own point of view.

I was created by my Creator to create.

There is a holiness in nature that I find nowhere else. Sitting in God’s handiwork I am reminded of the sacred and divine as I look outward and within - God is with me, God is for me, and that God truly loves me. We are broken, the land and I; fractured, bruised and scarred. But in the sublime sanctuary of God’s Holy hospitality, we will forever be welcomed, healed, and renewed.