Artist's Statement

You see only the things around you – people, places, objects. The compact camera, the smartphone, Facebook, and Instagram have conditioned you to regard the photograph solely as a means to document “who was there and what I ate”. You post, tag, pin and tweet in a world of personal photojournalism shared through social media.

I see things differently – a world composed of shapes, patterns, colors, and textures. My photographs bring these abstract characteristics into focus. When an object or place is viewed close up with limited or no context, its separate existence ends and its attributes become the subject of the image. Now you see what was visible, but unseen, and you are drawn into the intimate dialogue with my world.

Through my photographs I expose you to a different kind of photography. Your experience is most typically through photojournalism and commercial photography, where the photograph is about something. An event, a person, a place, or an object is the subject, and you readily understand an image that has an easily identifiable subject. My photographs ask you to connect with a subject you may not immediately see and challenge you to find meaning in a purely abstract representation. Modern abstract artist Paul Klee wrote, “Art does not reproduce the visible; rather, it makes visible.” This is the essence of fine art photography – a photograph created by the artist as photographer.