Refracted self-portraiture. An attempt to combine explorations of identity and perception.
Connecting threads.
Ideas translated into color.
Ribbons crossing space-time from me to you.
I’d like living in the dystopian hell bigots envision. This imaginary place where queerness is mundane. Where vending machines dispense gender affirming care. Where men can be househusbands. A place decoupaged in rainbows and glitter.
My eyes lie to me.
I have migraine with aura. Colors will change hue, lights become blinding bright, double vision, lost focus, iridescent shapes flit through the air, shadows transform into figures and back again...
I want to capture this strangeness; to share the contradiction of seeing and not believing.
“Fae king” or “faking?”
Sinking into imagination, I survived an abusive childhood.
Even now, my childhood memories are blurry; protective daydreams overwriting trauma.
As toy cameras are relatively inexpensive and low-tech, they invite a DIY attitude.
In-Camera Obscura experiments with the effect of materials between the aperture and film, within the camera’s body, creating a dialog between our modern concept of a camera and the classical phenomena.
Disabled. Chronically ill. Nonbinary. Trans. Socially anxious… And, yet, I pass as able-bodied, cis, and confident. At least, until my mask slips.
For oppressed identities, there’s physical safety in hiding. Being a non-target. Invisible.
But, it’s also emotionally and psychologically damaging. Real social change requires one to be an anecdote rather than a statistic.
A self-portraiture series, “Masque Off” captures the honest moments between performances, where the pain, frustration, and anxiety override the curated image.
Time isn’t real. Or, more accurately, the passage of time isn’t real. Per relativity, time is not independent from space, but rather a fourth coordinate in spacetime. Time does not flow, so much as we change positions.
Extending from Eye Lie, Parallax is a more formal exploration of perception as it relates to spacetime via long exposures and the use of multiple pinholes.
Is it behind the scenes, if you’re still performing?
I dreamt of a city submerged, skyscrapers sticking out like giant cypress trees in the bayou.
As/For Arietta Electrica, I produce electronic music, such as ♣︎ album, photographs, and screen prints. I am interested in how the emotional resonance of music can produce a sense of time/space, building micro-cultures in our minds.
Prismatique was my first set of photographic experiments. I glued a kaleidoscopic prism to a filter and put it on my DSLR. It was interesting to see the colors shift and find reflections from outside of my frame.