Dead to Me: Shadow of My Former Self
‘Dead to Me: Shadow of My Former Self’ is a conceptual performance piece and photographic series. Relating to central concerns within my artistic practice, it explores the role of clothing in shaping outward image and what it means to individual identity when these items are rejected and left behind—effectively marking the death of the former self.
In this work the photographer and subject are one and the same, interacting with a physical and abstract catalyst: ‘all the clothes I have removed from my existence.’
There is a strong reference to the subject’s ephemerality and state of flux or transformation, as in metamorphosis. Both aspects critical to traditional portraiture and still life photography and painting—with colours losing vibrancy, as if wilting petals on a flower.
Through an intimate performative process, I meditate on the form of my ‘former self’: an abstract, internally and externally orientated identity constructed of these ready-made items. The manifestations/compositions captured have a formal classic quality, but are in fact the product of a spontaneous, dynamic experience wherein clothing is used as an expressive medium akin to painting—a reference further reinforced by the visual qualities in the produced physical image.
Working in this way, I offer a set of candid, subconscious self-portrait images that are highly private yet invite the observer to study and reflect on their own image creation by evoking a sense of familiarity crossed with a certain alien ‘otherness’.
(Photographic pigment print on archival Photorag paper, Kappa Mount or Dibond, framed)
In this work the photographer and subject are one and the same, interacting with a physical and abstract catalyst: ‘all the clothes I have removed from my existence.’
There is a strong reference to the subject’s ephemerality and state of flux or transformation, as in metamorphosis. Both aspects critical to traditional portraiture and still life photography and painting—with colours losing vibrancy, as if wilting petals on a flower.
Through an intimate performative process, I meditate on the form of my ‘former self’: an abstract, internally and externally orientated identity constructed of these ready-made items. The manifestations/compositions captured have a formal classic quality, but are in fact the product of a spontaneous, dynamic experience wherein clothing is used as an expressive medium akin to painting—a reference further reinforced by the visual qualities in the produced physical image.
Working in this way, I offer a set of candid, subconscious self-portrait images that are highly private yet invite the observer to study and reflect on their own image creation by evoking a sense of familiarity crossed with a certain alien ‘otherness’.
(Photographic pigment print on archival Photorag paper, Kappa Mount or Dibond, framed)
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