When I am out in a natural landscape taking pictures, a lot of how I see and what I look at depends on weather, mood, and other variable and unpredictable circumstances. Always, beauty is a subject in my work which I value for its pleasure and persuasiveness.
Back in my studio, I digitally develop each picture starting with a black and white image. Focusing on shades of black, I consider the abstract imagery in the shadow areas. I keep these dark spaces discreet; they are hard to reach, yet compelling like a memory fading away. I continue to consider how nature is resilient, and can be a source of inspiration and optimism, while at the same time, a reminder of the world’s fragility. It’s not enough now for me to observe nature and represent what it means and how it feels only with a black and white photographic image.
And that has led me to add new elements to my pictures: language and color. Each collection of words and colors in a photograph correspond while adding depth and complexity. For example, in Sorrows, I chose eleven words from a passage in the novel, All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews where the narrator asks her piano-playing virtuoso sister, “What’s so hot about playing the piano?” and receives a stunning answer expressing how to render a riveting, emotional experience. Art, like music communicates abstractly, but transparently, delivering meaning and profound emotion.
beauty
resiliency
uncertainty
memory
forgetting
elsewhere
fernweh
dépaysement
afterness
amnesia
curiosity
nostalgia
absence
history
collage
transition
transit
transience
mobility
nurture
nature
shadow
secrets
impermanence
randomness