The theme of my photo-based work has focused on an exploration of the body as a site of transformation.  I am interested in reflecting life in a constant state of flux, with organisms being affected by natural selection, biological processes, scientific intervention and consumer desire. 

The images reference medical photographs, botanical drawings, natural history museum displays, horror films and fairy tales. They touch on a variety of current discussions surrounding bioengineering, medical research, cloning, evolution, and plastic surgery.

Below are some comments and technical information on each of the bodies of work that are included on this website.  

Deeper Skin and Vital Supports

From 2000-2003, I developed two separate bodies of work, Deeper Skin (2000-2001) and Vital Supports (2002-2003).  The images are “straight” images, constructed in the studio with basic lighting, props and prosthetics and using Polaroid “peel off” film. 

The photographs are intimate in scale, no bigger than 5 by 4 inches. The earlier series, Deeper Skin is taken with a vintage Polaroid 180 camera.  The images have a kind of do-it-yourself, low-tech feel, as if it were someone’s documentation of a home-based surgery.  They are brighter in tone and have a more obvious feeling of artifice than the second series Vital Supports, which, taken with a 4x5 view camera, have a more subdued and serious nature, suggesting a dialog between our inner and outer selves. 

Digital imaging also provides for an instant image, but for me it does not have the magic of Polaroid film.  The image appears on paper before your eyes.  It is authentic, fragile and unique.

There are over 100 individual pieces in these combined bodies of work. 

Variance

Following the Polaroid work, from 2004-2005, I began to construct images digitally.   For these, I started by taking pictures of models in the studio, scanning the resulting original film into a Photoshop program and manipulating the images to create fictional flesh constructions.

The work depicts the body as an elastic material that may be manipulated physically and metaphorically.  Rather than using props, the body’s own details such as hair and skin become exaggerated and reassembled.  The process involved with this work is akin to Dr. Frankenstein forming a complete functioning creature from disparate body parts.  While many of the concerns are similar to those explored in the Polaroid series, the scale grew to life size or larger, with the subjects presented iconically, as if they are deities with unique supernatural or highly evolved abilities.  They are both gods and monsters. 

There are approximately 12 images in this series.   

Flora 

In 2006- 2007, I worked on a body of photo-based images that combine parts from plants, animals, insects and synthetic products that merge into hybrid specimens.  These subjects/objects are in a stage of organic transformation: reproduction, replication, symbiosis or evolution.

In particular, I focused on flowers. I am interested showing flowers, the sex organs of plants as exaggerated due to genetic engineering, evolution or as fetishized for their beauty.     

Unlike animals, plants are immobile and cannot seek out sexual partners for reproduction.  Some flowers have developed co-dependencies with different species to assist in reproduction, such as the orchid which mimics the shape of a particular insect to attract them to mate with the flower as a pollen distribution method. 

Separate from their own organic evolution, flowers have also been transformed because humans are attached to them.  We take care of them because they give us pleasure.  In that sense, they’re like the pets or jewels of the plant world.  Out of this continuing connection with humans, a flower industry has flourished, manipulating flowers to meet consumer desire.  Unlike their relatives in the wild, without constant human intervention, many domesticated flowers are impotent sex organs, constructed only for human pleasure.

The images in Flora fictivus are constructed by importing objects that are placed on a scanner, which captures a high degree of detail, like an 8 x 10 inch negative in traditional, large-format photography. The use of the scanner as a camera connects the work with the history of straight documentary photography used to record botanical specimens, medical conditions, and forensic evidence.

The scanned images are then manipulated (more or less) in digital imaging programs.  The goal is that they appear as authentic specimens. Their final size is 30 x 24 inches and they are printed on a matte photo rag paper, which enhances their reference to early botanical drawings.

There are sixteen images in this series. 

Bodyworks

In 2007, I also continued to work with images of the body in an untitled series (bodyworks) that suggest a symbiotic relationship between the plant and animal worlds.  They are close up details of the human body with organic growths or hosts.  They are shot in the studio with a hand held digital snapshot camera.  Their casual style gives them a sense of immediacy as if the growths were on the verge of some stage of an organic transformation.

This is a series of ten images, 18 x 22 inches each, printed on a highly glossy surface that has metallic undertones.  The reflective surface gives them an unreal, other-worldly quality.

Snapshots

I work on more than one body of work at a time and reflected on this site are images from two other series, Captiva and Untitled (snapshots).  Both of these groups of work make use of imagery taken out of the studio, primarily in public space. 

In a series of untitled photographs (snapshots), started in 2006 I am using snapshots as source material. In this group of images, the manipulation is both secondary to the content and an integral part of it. The use of snapshots provides a context for the subjects and in each of the scenes the subjects are engaged with others, rather than being concerned with the photographer’s camera gaze. In a sense, they are depicted as simply going about their daily life, strange as it may be.

In some ways the work references freak shows that were popular in the United States in the mid nineteenth. Since then, there has been debate as to whether the performers in past freak shows were exploited victims or were savvy entrepreneurs, using their body as a source of income and power. Today, the “freak show” has been updated with reality shows that depict unusual medical conditions such as someone born without a face, huge tumors, or conjoined twins.

This work also explores ideas of otherness in some possible future world.  Do the subjects in these photographs have a disability, have they been genetically created, or are they the result of continued evolution?

There are currently twelve images in this ongoing series.

Captiva

The final series of work, Captiva, was an ongoing body of work from 1999-2005.  These images are a collection of mug shots taken at public events of individuals who assume the identity of popular culture icons, historical figures, fictional characters and animals, or who are applying clothing or other miscellaneous details that create the impression of a costume, an exaggeration or a layering of identity.  They reflect a low tech transformation with the subjects having multiple identities.  Through this work, I am partly acting as an anthropologist, searching for and cataloging the unusual or excessive.  Taken together, they form a collection of sorts.  The images are organized and classified as specimens and placed in general categories based on criteria such as formal qualities, assumed identity or like-minded transformations.  A complete statement for the series is on this site under the Captiva section.

There are over 100 pictures in this series.  New images cannot be added because Captiva film is no longer available.  The format size of Polaroid Captiva film was 4 3/8 x 2 1/2 inches.