about the work

For me, the coexistence of seeming contradictions marks the moment when parallel realities collide. When we recognize that something is both askew and right on the mark, confusion and/or enlightenment usually follow. Humor and irony have colored much of my work as it exploits visual miscues and the deceptive nature of first impressions to examine the power of photography’s surface to persuade us to believe. For the past twenty years I have been making moving and still images that investigate how photographic images infiltrate our consciousness, occupy our memories and influence how we see and experience the world we live in.
	Representations combines photography and drawing to explore the concept of photographic truth and its correspondence to perceived reality. No digital manipulation is involved. Focusing on the representation of ordinary objects, the images appear to vacillate between drawing and photograph, black and white and color, signifier and signified, absence and presence. The resulting visual hybrids intend to challenge the assumptions or expectations we might have about the nature of photography and its relationship to what we perceive to be real. more >
	For the Life-Size series I photograph my friends and family interacting with miniature objects, as if they were functioning tools or possessions. I print the image so that the original object appeas to approximate "life-size" scale, disturbing perceptual expectations and a natural sense of order. more >
	This series of color photographs, From the Garden of Natural and Not So Natural Wonders, addresses the conflict between our status as a natural species and our impact on the natural environment. The photographs reflect on paradises lost, science fictions becoming fact while considering the impending crisis and the future of a post-modern planet on the edge of survival. more >
	The installation, New Eden: The Life and Work of Isabelle Raymond, asks us to rethink the past as well as the present and future. Assuming the fictional character of a 19th-century cross-dressing female photographer, Isabelle Raymond, and making the faded photographs attributed to her, I create a kind of alternative archive that examines the selective nature of dominant historical narratives and stereotypes that continue to influence us today. more >
	Genetic Traits documents the recurring physical trait of a second bottom that appears on the sides of apples, identified as from Lot #4135, purchased at my local grocery store. more >
	Black Box: this is not my father pays homage to the emotional power of video and film as a moving portrait, and yet at the same time considers the ultimate impotency and incompleteness of such visual surrogates to capture the essence of human life. more >
	In the series, Proof: Evidence of a Possible Narrative, I replace my camera’s lens with a peephole and use it as a visual device to imply an act of surveillance, positioning the viewer as an after-the-fact witness, a kind of detective in search of meaning. more >