Back in my studio, I digitally develop the pictures using a mostly black and white palette. 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. Letting go means a realignment of what I remember. Looking forward 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.
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