my epiphany
After an emergency appendectomy in my early 20s, I developed an uninterrupted and indescribable amount of pain. Standard, daily activities were agonizing and difficult. For a long time, it only got worse. For a while, I did not walk.
Around this time my father unexpectedly passed away. I felt like I was living life, yet I was mentally elsewhere.
I realize now that art became a means of trying to manage this painfully demanding time. Photography evolved into a source of relief contemplation, distraction, and a means to process.
This transformed my artwork. My photographs became abstracted and referred to explore forces which are larger and beyond the body and its limitations, such as cosmos, deep oceans, and spaces evocative of infinity.
My artistic practice became a process to help me mentally sublimate beyond my physical and mental experience. Creating artwork became a meditative practice. I found myself feeling quiet, focusing on feeling comfortable while I was
shooting, concentrating on light and darkness rather than simply feeling absent and disoriented.
The more I abstracted my work, the more my work referred to that which is immeasurable and much larger than the body, and glimpses of the infinite I examined the notion of ‘the void’ concepts of the universe and the unconscious, and I experimented with methods of making my art more immersive as I visualized physical and mental relief.
This relief was not only for myself, I want my viewers to experience some sort of meditative peace when viewing my work, to feel as if they are able to step outside of their world for a moment into a space where they may contemplate these larger-than-life concepts and spaces.
Specifically, I analyze and employ what is known as the aesthetic sublime. The aesthetic sublime can be described as a quality of greatness (physical, mental, aesthetic, artistic, and spiritual greatness), which implies an intensity beyond possibility of measurement or imitation.