“I linger in the cocoon of my breast,

longing to break through,

like an unborn cry in the lung.”

 

I have always been fascinated by the notion of secrets, more accurately, the secret lives that play out in the privacy of our own minds, transcending the confines of our day-to-day existence, breaching the boundaries of our physical limitations. It is here, in the secret worlds of our minds, that we are truly able to express our innermost selves, freely exploring the expansive realities of the soul; striped of the boxes that society has placed us in. It is both my own longing for this world and my daily repression of it that spurs me to create art.

 

Coming to the medium from a performance background, it seems only natural that I have found a niche for myself in self-portrait photography. Drawing from my training as both an actor and a dancer, my images are both performative and introspective, invoking narrative through the careful use of pose, lighting, tonality and expression. By heightening each capture with a specialized technique of post-processing, each image takes on a mysterious other-worldly quality, as if to offer a small but profound glimpse into those secret worlds that can only be hinted at, but never fully understood.

 

One of my main sources of inspiration is the text of my own writing. Behind nearly every image you will find a piece of text or a poem, each painstakingly crafted until it has matured into a self-sustaining work. These narratives become the back-story for my images, enlivening the world within which my principle character exists by endowing every piece with an added sense of depth, and emotionality, such that can only achieved through this unique mode of multilayered conceptualization. Through this intensive and deeply personal self-portraiture process, I am able to engage the viewer more directly, conveying to them the depths of my own intimate reality, stripped of the secondary influences inherent in any collaboration. I may speak to them privately, as honestly and as freely as if I were standing in the room next to them; paradoxically drawing them into my private world, all the while pushing them to explore their own. Each photograph becomes a confession of secrets, an urgent and pervasive whisper, compelling the viewer to both abandon and examine his or her own individual secret worlds.