Artist Statement

My photographic practice began as an arts students at Stony Brook University. In my time at Stony Brook I not only learned the practical practices of photography, but a sense of artistic identity in photography. My professors and fellow students helped me explore genres of photography in order to establish a cohesion in my photographic style. I came to discover I enjoy photographing the abstract more than anything. I see the camera as a way to concentrate the viewer’s perspective to the small aspects of life which they would typically overlook. Limiting the point of view is what I find to be my biggest strength as a photographer. I like to remove context from the objects or subjects which I photograph in order to accentuate the attention given to a specific space from a limited perspective, potentially getting my viewers to crop spaces they walk around in with their eyes.

My project which I find to be the biggest showcase of this style is my series Transportation from 2019. Transportation is a project which I did for my Senior Honors solo exhibition at Stony Brook. The project began as a study on reflections with cars as the subject in focus. After I took many abstract, close-up picture of the hoods and sides of cars I began showing them to students and professors for feedback which led to many comments of people seeing the ocean, a dessert, and other landscapes within the photographs. This evolved the project to have a new theme. Instead of taking pictures of cars without looking for anything in particular, I was now looking to find abstract landscapes within the picture. This concept helps draw the viewer away from the subject matter and instead towards an interpretation of a specific perspective of each car.

One of the biggest influences for the development of my style has been Jan Groover. What I admire about Groover’s body of work is her ability to turn average subject matter into something beautiful just through abstract perspective and composition. After discovering her work I developed a new way of visualizing what was around me, using odd perspectives to notice compositions others overlook. This influence led to me straying away from subject matter which tends to flood artistic photography and to find beauty in the unusual and ordinary.