White Empty Earth

Images of nature have framed the way most see and understand the physical world. Throughout history, nature has been represented as a place of human drama, theology and human speculation. Photography in many ways has continued with this kind of nature depiction. With White Empty Earth, I have focused on these uses of nature-based imagery, using two competing elements: Place and Ephemera. Through preparatory research and sketch, I constructed scenes in the studio, through miniature and tableaux, based on accumulated or generalized imagery throughout history. These scenes are created for the camera and thus for the photograph. As photographs, the work doubles in meaning, acting as records of place and time as well as fictions created for the camera. The work simultaneously reveals and conceals its process leaving viewers in a vague place between fact and fiction. With this work, my hope is to blend the nature of photography as record and illusion.