The Closest to Heaven That I'll Ever Be

This body of work explores the aesthetics and emotional architecture of an imagined girlhood. These images function as self-mythologizing tools: visual constructions of the girl I longed to be, rather than portraits of who I was.

This body of work explores the aesthetics and emotional architecture of an imagined girlhood– one shaped as much by cultural iconography and internet nostalgia as by personal memory. These images function as self-mythologizing tools: visual constructions of the girl I longed to be, rather than portraits of who I was.

The characters depicted within these scenes are not documentary subjects but archetypes; highly stylised, emotionally isolated, and suspended in an unattainable moment of beauty and freedom. The series resists narrative closure and instead embraces longing as its central theme. 

While the work engages with familiar visual languages– those of Tumblr-era femininity, cinematic stills, and contemporary fashion portraiture, it does so from a place of ambivalence. These images are both indulgent and critical, sincere and constructed. At its core, this project is less about representing girlhood as it was, and more about creating space for the version that never materialized.