“Vertigo”

Iceland’s mercurial geography inspires this series of photographs about a landscape that is constantly shifting. On my first trip to Iceland in 2013, I came to understand the profound instability of our earth. On this island in the North Atlantic, in minutes a mountain can disappear or a valley can become a river of lava. The rapid flux in the weather, the midnight sun and the polar night, all provoke a feeling of disorientation. The firmament collects in puddles. The marks of human habitation are pervasive and at the same time little more than a mirage, on the verge of disappearing. From small changes in light, weather, season, and the actions of beast and man, to enormous tectonic cataclysm, past and future upheaval waits within the stability and stillness of each photograph. Nonetheless, disorientation can lead to transformation. Nature and human presence, creation and destruction, sun and rain, duality gradually gives way to a more fluid and protean understanding of the cosmos. In the Norse creation myth, the blood, skin, muscles, hair and brains of the murdered giant Ymir form the oceans, clouds, plants and soil of the earth. Destiny is cyclical, not finite, and in the next cycle perhaps our brains will create clouds. My current artistic approach is influenced by Romanticism’s emphasis on a personal and emotional resonance with nature. When making photographs I work, as would a documentary photographer, respecting the integrity of appearances. However, the meaning of the subjects of my photographs is only half in the world of form. This results in an orbit of emotion and symbolism around a moment that has now vanished, unmooring us, leading to “Vertigo.”