Terra Mollis (Soft Earth), 2016-2019
Interested in the romanticism associated with Traditional Landscape Photography existing within a visually distorted surreal reality, I've started to manipulate photographs of the natural landscape, portraits and daily life moments of the world. My matter of interest lies with how to create a new perspective that mimics yet challenges the reality of what is being seen. Once a photograph is altered, reality diminishes. The process of viewing an unknown landscape can become a chance to explore, to experience puzzlement, and to question. Skewing the mixtures of documented scenes to create spatial tension and conversation, I wish to address the way materials are combined and emotional connection to the new organic photographs created.
A photograph of a wave is far from the material, size, and sounds that construct an existing wave, but can offer us a similar feeling. Not the same however, more imagination driven, our minds fill in the missing parts, including extra parts to the sensory memory.
Interested in the romanticism associated with Traditional Landscape Photography existing within a visually distorted surreal reality, I've started to manipulate photographs of the natural landscape. My matter of interest lies with how to create a new perspective that mimics yet challenges the reality of what is being seen. Once a photograph is altered, reality diminishes. Or was the initial reproduction on paper-like material of a scene abstracted by time and flattened by space remove the realness far enough from the subject matter in focus? The process of viewing an unknown landscape can become a chance to explore, to experience puzzlement, and question it's existence. Skewing the documented landscapes to create spacial tension and conversion, I wish to address the material, the use of the material, and the material being viewed sculpturally.
As a female photographer with the desire to document the land, my concern is focused on where my place resides in an, often viewed as, male dominated area of photography. From taking in sunset after sunset, to the smell of the ocean breeze, a harmonious balance overcomes my senses and the natural art of the land holds true and continues to inspire new organic photographs.
The investigation of the grandeur in photographic truth over the romanticized nostalgia of a sense of place has been an on-going conversation when addressing the history of American west landscape photography. I make photographs using four equally sized rocks found at one of the National parks, a light source, and a camera. Through the limiation of material, I've begun to explore the romantic sublime world of abstract landscapes. And how what is being seen becomes an illusion by shifting the scale of the natural world to play with perception.
My work addresses the duality of the finite within the infinite by challenging the conventions of the American west imagery through abstraction. By taking the tradtional process of making landscapes to create a new perspective that mimics yet challenges the reality of what is being seen. The process of viewing an unknown landscapes can become a chance to explore, to experience puzzlement and question it's existence, a fictional reality.
