FORMLESS
I asked myself, how can I “see” my body, see myself in the way that my subjective mind, or the idea of who I am, “feels” it? The photographs in these two series, made as long exposure performance pieces, create impressions of my body that are more akin to what is felt by the mind trapped inside that body than how it is seen, perceived or configured in linear space-time by the five senses. The photographs are an attempt to transcend the confines of finite physical bounds, to reveal something closer to the deeper aspirations of my inner being. They are a longing to escape those confines and a means of expressing in physical terms the vast scope of abstract emotions and thoughts that create my sense of self. The photographs that result from these long exposure performances are gestural, emotional markings, drawings made performatively by the body and with the body, with an eye to balancing the relationship between mind and body. The images are at once peaceful yet aggravating in their perturbation of classical physical form. The individuality, the “being,” that emerges in each photograph is an image of a feeling, sometimes sorrowful, sometimes resplendent, sometimes gloriously defiant, sometimes pained, even grotesque. These photographs are an aspirational catharsis, the mind escaping the body, an attempt to use the abstract form of self in the mind’s eye, the mind’s attempt to shape the body. These pictures are my mind, they are my soul projected on the canvas of my body.