I make photographs to suggest a poetic counter-world while acknowledging the abysmal and the uncanny lurking beneath the surface of utopian fantasies.
In Know Me for the First Time, I continue my visual investigations into longing, desire, history, and memory, both private and public. In a world beset by fear, war and the specter of ecological disaster, yearning for a safe haven has become part of everyday living. I use photographs to suggest a poetic counter-world, while acknowledging the abysmal and the uncanny lurking beneath the surface of utopian fantasies. These images, originating in diverse locations including Iceland, New England, Alaska and Southern California, reveal an artistic practice that is deeply personal, yet universal, oscillating between anxiety and yearning for a better world.
My pictures present psychologically charged places and individuals whose emotional states teeter between despair and redemption. Know Me For the First Time represents my stand against the relentless march of time, and an embrace of life’s beautiful and inescapably painful unfolding. The photographs engage the Western canon—from the Baroque to photorealist painting, from German Romanticism to contemporary portraiture. Inspired by mysticism, spirituality, and the occult, I weave visual echoes from my past to create an evocative, dreamy universe uniquely my own in both its formal qualities and narrative themes.
