Dear Thomas,

When my mother was six months pregnant with me, my father committed suicide in the desert outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. It is impossible to describe, or even know, how that tragedy has undeniably shaped me. My life has been unaffected, for better or worse, by the absence of a person to whom I am both inextricably tied but who also remains a stranger. The work I provided in my application consists of a series of photographs titled “Dear Thomas,” By conflating snapshots that candidly describe my family with staged images in which I photographically re-describe moments of my childhood, or even adorn my father’s persona as a kind of “method actor,” I photographically examine the complex dynamic of my family as well as the impact of his loss and genetic influence on my personhood.