Fractured

Fractured reflects an evolving responsiveness to the new world I find myself in: the American South. The characters and places in Fractured form a constellation: an interconnected web of stories and spaces.

Fractured reflects an evolving responsiveness to the new world I find myself in: the American South.

Originally from Miami, Florida, I often joke that Miami isn’t really part of the South – it is the northernmost tip of Latin America.

Moving to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, six years ago, I set out to create work rooted in my newfound environment. Since then, my photography has been a visceral response to the curiosities, contradictions and complexities of my Southern surroundings.

Fractured oscillates between unsetting, often ambiguous portraits of Southerners and complicated landscapes. The results of this recent work are striking, rich with contradictions and layered with tension – often echoing the thick-soupy, sometimes oppressive, atmosphere of the South itself. Both alluring and cautionary, the images in Fractured invite the viewer to look and simultaneously turn away. There is an undercurrent of morbid fascination, a reflection of our current fractured moment, pulling at both the heart and the nerves.

Some images hint at a universal truth: no matter how carefully we proceed in life trying to hold things together, we are all fleeting; destined, eventually to face the same impermanence. Time can be measured through some of the photographs, confronting the viewer with the ephemeral beauty of youth and the inevitable arrival of age, reminding us that, in the end, nothing remains untouched. We strive to maintain order, but ultimately everything falls apart.

The characters and places in Fractured form a constellation: an interconnected web of stories and spaces. Seeking to resist stereotypes or pull the viewer into easy narratives, I aspire to present a complex portrait of the South; one that invites reflection without dictating meaning.