HEROES

“Heroes” is a collection of eight self-portrait photographs drawn from my curiosity and respect for human endurance - the capacity to bear unimaginable hardship and emerge whole, void, or not at all. How and why the people that experience these hardships give up, emerge to be able to enjoy life again, or merely continue to exist, unable to step to either side. I am interested in the journey of the soul under unbearable weight, and why it ends where it does.

In this work, I have experimented with various objects such as volcanic ash, bones, clay, plants, coyote skulls, and porcupine needles, as metaphors to tell a visual narrative in hopes that the viewer lingers awhile, questioning the meaning of the elements and why they are placed in the manner they appear. By merging the reality of despair with the surreal realm of fantasy, these photographs are depictions of the longing to awake and find it all a dream.