Artist Statement
Ever since I was young, I have had a curiosity about life’s fleeting nature. The idea that one day everything will meet a point in time where it ceases to exist is both beautiful yet frightening. As we fade away, only to become a memory, what will remain of the self? Will our possessions be cherished, or will they too fade into nothing as time passes? Who will be the last to say our name? These are questions that I often ask myself.
This body of work is an exploration of the fleeting. Using a combination of self-portraits and still life, these images show the cross-section between the beauty and uneasiness that accompanies the questioning of one’s own existence. Pairing a mid-19th century wet-plate process on glass with contemporary digital capture, untethers these images from any particular time. This detachment creates a space for reflection on the self and one’s own relationship with time, as the fragility of glass and peeling collodion act as a reminder that, ultimately, we are not in control of some outcomes.
Displayed as light boxes, the yellow-red-brown tone of the collodion silver chloride imparts a warmth to the scene, evoking associations of early photographs printed in earthy monochromes. The scrawled marks and evidence of process further convey the deterioration these subjects and environments sustain through the passage of time. These illuminated images are delicate in nature, I’mpermanence possesses a quality between permanence and ephemerality throughout its content and materiality.
