Mirror/Mirror

I make images that are optically fractured, complex and disorienting to destabilize the historical tendencies of the camera’s view. My work is a document of deterioration, movement and experimentation of my body interacting with objects and other people.

I compose scenes that draw on art historical and autobiographical references in order to create a specific view of the body in relationship to the photographic apparatus and the material world. I eschew digital manipulation, instead making a world before the camera that challenges the viewer’s sense of space and reality, and dislocates their position in reality. I photograph myself with vegetables and furniture, drawing parallels between a body shaped by a lifetime of ballet and more recently pregnancy, and the suggestive forms of produce grown in my father’s garden or discarded furniture. The curves of a zucchini recall elegant limbs; bulbous gourds echo swollen bellies. The curve of a chair can imply the absent sitter, or echo the curve of a human arm. Still-lifes composed of moldy fruit capture a range of colors: a fading vibrancy that will nourish new life. I've taken inspiration from still-life painters Juan Sanchez Cotan and Raphelle Peale, surrealists Yves Tanguy, Kay Sage and Magritte and photographers Hans Breder, Andre Kertez, Weegee, Muybridge, Marey, Joann Callis, Lucas Samaras and Francesca Woodman.

I am interested in revealing the tools of my process, leaving visible the clips and edges of the seamless paper used as a backdrop. I employ mirrors, doubles, and re-photography, but make no use of digital manipulation. The illusions created in the tableaux I arrange are captured with a straightforward method that underscores the complexity of my studio process. I use mirrors to double body parts or copy segments of other photographs. I photographed details of imperfections such as strechmarks on my skin and thought of them as a landscape. I used this texture and printed the skin at a large scale background to link the planes of the photograph together. I want the viewer to look closely at things and figure out how they function at different scales in relationship to each other. I also use mirrors in some framed works as a sculptural element, expanding the scope of the reflections to include the gallery setting and viewers themselves, implicating them in the events of the picture.

I have photographed my body though the changes of age, pregnancy, birth, breastfeeding, post-partum healing and child raising to bring visual awareness to the physical sacrifices mothers go through. When my son was born in 2018, I photographed myself breastfeeding him on the floor of my studio. In 2019 I photographed my painstakingly pumped and discarded breastmilk. In 2023 I photographed my placenta on the eve of my son's 5th birthday.

Most recently I created a ‘mirror-room’ where I could make photo-multigraphs. This is a photographic novelty from the early 20th century in which a single subject is captured from five angles in one image. Normally two mirrors are used to create 5 subjects from one sitter, but I used it to both multiply and fragment the subjects of the pictures. Throughout the process of working in this space, I began to invite family and friends into my studio, and over the last two years I’ve made portraits of others as well as myself. These people were part of my family or pod during the time of Covid. Sometimes I’m hidden or completely out of the frame, but sometimes you can see me making an expression that the subject is reacting to, or we are even sitting together in this confrontative but intimate space.

This playful questioning extends into three dimensions with the sculpture Torso packing blanket/quilt, barre/rack (2021). I begin with an image of my body imprinted with a pattern from my ballet leotard, which bears a resemblance to scars, hinting at bodily trauma. This is printed onto a quilted blanket, the stitched chevron pattern overlaid onto the photographic one. The ballet barre doubles as blanket rack, conjuring associations with domesticity. The milestones of my life are collapsed into one enigmatic object.