Artist Statement: Portraits
Photography shows me other people's discovery of identity; this perspective for creating my art comes from my own search for what makes me singular. I learned to be independent at an early age. Being raised on a cattle farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia taught me to be self-reliant and helped me develop the foundation of my identity. But the farm’s rural, melancholic atmosphere reminded me of an Andrew Wyeth painting. I spent my days alone exploring the open farmland, hunting squirrels in the neighbors’ woods, and, of course, doing plenty of farm chores. These solo adventures on the farm taught me resilience and gave me the freedom to hone my individuality. I value the experiences the farm environment afforded to me, and now I work to understand how the aloneness shaped me. My art examines self-discovery through solitude, exploring our relationship with aloneness.
My portraiture has provided me with a means of self-discovery that could not have been possible otherwise. Through my art, I reexamine my childhood experiences as a means of self-exploration and to understand why I find comfort in aloneness. Far removed from the farm, my life today is full of friends, family, and ever-expanding connections. But even with these close relationships, I still believe the world is fundamentally lonely. I have a constant desire to revisit that childhood aloneness that so deeply impacted me while growing up on the farm. For the extrovert, my art may convey a sense of forlornness in my subjects. But the strength and confidence that develops from embracing solitude begins to shine through when one can view aloneness as a positive human experience.
I focus heavily on studio portraiture of individual subjects. Most of my subjects I’ve never met or even spoken to on the phone before we work together. They are strangers in every sense of the word. My immediate discomfort with this encounter with a stranger drives my creative process. Converting this discomfort into a positive connection is necessary to make emotionally convincing photographs. Vacant of context, my close-up portraits focus on the discovery of an individual's identity against a minimal background. The repetition of this discovery process helps me continue to examine and understand my own singularity. Witnessing people find their identity through solidarity, then representing their individualism with precision, lies at the core of my artistic vision.
