Softly Amorphous

By juxtaposing personal photographs with found images in the setting of still-life photography, I aim to reflect the rhizomatic pattern of our minds, linking diverse visual lexicons to create meaning.

In "Softly Amorphous," I delve into the nuanced interplay between observation and interpretation, mirroring the "CLOSER" theme's exploration of intimacy and interconnectedness with our surroundings. Through a meticulous process of photographing everyday and handcrafted objects across varied environments—domestic, urban, and institutional—I engage intimately with the subjects, viewing them not just as inanimate items but as repositories of cultural, scientific, and personal significance.

I photograph objects across diverse settings: domestic, urban, and institutional. My subjects include mass-produced items like glassware and kitchen magnets, organic ones like flora and fruits, as well as my hand-crafted ceramics. I’m drawn to how the reflective bottom of a glass cup can resemble a galaxy, how kitchen magnets are tokens of journeys, and how the subdued hue evokes the rising zeitgeist of minimalistic lifestyles.

Subsequently, I print out the photographs. By cutting, folding, and twisting, I convert the printed paper into three-dimensional forms and photograph the outcome against a white backdrop. These resulting images reference how, in the realms of memory, linearity falls short, objects lose their totality, and different temporal instances entangle.

I also source images under the themes of technology, science, and culture. They feature intriguing objects and diagrams of theoretical ideas, including an image of an ancient bow headpiece and an illustration of prime knots. I’m interested in how the robust metal was used to emulate the delicacy of a bow, an interplay between the constructed and the original. Meanwhile, the concept of a prime knot, being indecomposable and forever entangled, evokes the cyclical nature of my work: it mirrors the oscillation between photographic representation and reality and the inter-referencing nature of objects as symbolic entities.

By juxtaposing personal photographs with found images in the setting of still-life photography — often characterized by backdrops and countertops — I aim to reflect the rhizomatic pattern of our minds, linking diverse visual lexicons to create meaning.