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ARTIST STATEMENT
It was in my grandmother’s kitchen at five years old that my father first noticed the white haze covering my eyes. Mistaking it for a reflection from the picture window in the next room we shortly after discovered I was born with cataracts. My sight would gradually continue to deteriorate, images perceived only as dark shadows or patches of bright light. At ten years old the first cataract was removed, followed by the second three years later. During this three year period in between images lacked vibrancy and detail, which made the first images with both corrected eyes all the more startling at first. The unfamiliarity of the bright hot pink flamingo on my mother’s sweatshirt was jarring. Understanding that what I saw was what everyone else saw, left me to conclude that something had gone very wrong with the surgery. After conveying this to my doctor, he responded with a chuckle and explained the concept of what 20/20 vision meant, handed me a pair of dark sunglasses too large for my face, and sent me on my way telling me that in time it would all make sense.
Hence, at that moment began a lifelong journey of exploring visual images and the questioning of their authenticity. When I first picked up a camera it became my tool for obsessively cataloging every new image I came across; a means for comparison for objects that I'd only before felt. In a sense I was creating a mental pictionary of sorts of my new world, perhaps an act created out of fear; fear of losing my sight again. Or perhaps because it took me back someplace comfortable and safe when I would shoot black and white film.
Eventually, I learned to trust my eyes and what they were seeing but realized it was much harder to explain that which is not obvious to the human eye. Experience has taught me that it is that which we cannot see we must excavate and question, exploring its history and its relationship to the present. Personal history and cultural history can take shape in many forms and become lost with time which is why I think it is so important to bring it back and place it in a contemporary context. It is an aspect of the art making process that has come critical to my work as an artist and continues to fuel the way I work today.
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