Mom And Dad Photographed Between Ages 11-14 (2008-2011)

Palladium on Paper 2023


I grew up very isolated on a 200-acre ranch in the woos of Northern California. 60 miles from town. A wood-stove. A corgi. A creek behind our house. I love-hated it. I was mostly just lonely. I had a pink digital camera. A viewfinder of a perceived static reality. A sense-making machine. A photograph makes it real. Makes me real. Makes us real. I used photographs to make sense of things. To see the impression left behind and dissect it, remeber it, and interpret it. To control my gaze when I  felt powerless. To have something autonomous. The camera acts as an invasion, as sovereignty, as proof of my boredom. The parent acts as identity, as fear, as love, as human.

 
While this work hints of my complex affection towards my childhood – it is also an homage to the origin of my affection for images. These archived photographs printed on palladium serve as documents of my childhood gaze of my mother and father; some of the only subjects I had to affirm my existence. The process of printing is both intimate and somber as their gaze meets mine while I continue to make art about them 15 years later.





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