STAGES Series

My photographic process and subject matter are both informed by a varied artistic background. My love for the photograph is closely tied to my interests in how viewers perceive and trust the relative ‘realness’ of various 2D mediums: drawing, printmaking, video and painting, installation, and how gestalt theory of visual perception plays into arrangement and interpretation of content. These influences and mediums are embedded into my process, just as the camera, darkroom, or computer are. The featured series in my application, STAGES, originated as a site-specific installation that was staged specifically to be photographed, on display for the month of January 2017. Thematically, the STAGES series derived from buzzwords and scenarios from election coverage. The subject matter, crafted from familiar materials like yarn, housing hardware, and ribbon, was arranged and affixed to vertical wall panels of a high-traffic public gallery. The visual qualities of the photographic prints are a combined result of the installation materials mixed with a multilayered process: digital negatives, hand-coated dye emulsion, scanning, and digital editing. While the installation was up, visitors to the gallery could browse the installation panels and scan QR codes to view the edited photographs online with their corresponding physical stages in the gallery, providing an optional forum to observe and reflect how photographs and printing processes can transform subject matter and shift interpretations of the work. The photographs, now printed large format, exist as the final iteration of the STAGES series in addition to the documentation of the installation.