I make images which seem at first glance to be

innocent. My aesthetics are revisionistic, naïve,

as if bent through the lens of a five-year-old.

FAMILY

A dark self portrait of my small family which exists outside the constraints of space and time. 

 

I WOULDN'T DO THAT IF I WERE YOU

These images form a picture book, a book for children and adults - adults who worry and children who don’t know to worry. I intend for the images to be childlike - carefree and joyful, and yet to contain an impending sense of danger.

RECEPTACLE

“ Somehow every indignity the female suffers ultimately comes to be symbolized in a sexuality that is held to be her responsibility, her shame. It can be summerized in one four-letter word. And the word is not fuck, it’s cunt. Our self-contempt originates in this; in knowing that we are cunt”  Kate Millett

Cutlures, both codified and unconscious, define women's vaginas as passive, receptive, responsive, acceptant. I use this yielding, malleable material as the pliant flesh for the characters in my stories. Narratives which speak of a willing and resigned acceptance of domination; my images are about the theft of innocence, the betrayal of trust, the sacrifice of oneself to the needs of others, and the price that is paid for these transmutations. It is from this gendered and monstrous self, full of rage, that my work emerges.

MY AMERICAN SON

I am photographing my child as he interacts with the suburban environments, commercial developments, concrete roadways, and hollow amusements of contemporary America

When my son was born, I realized that I was responsible for the moral development of another human being. As a mother I am accountable to my child--and to the community for the outcome of my son’s character. And yet, already, at six, many of my sons experiences are beyond my control; I see ever-present external influences played out on him—the violence of televised war, the ubiquitous din of advertising, soulless concrete and asphalt surroundings, monotonous suburban sprawl and the rapid decline of the natural world. I wonder, how will he not be shaped by the threat, noise, uniformity and banality of the suburban consumer culture in which he is coming of age.

CUT

In my Cut photographs, I carve images into my flesh. In subject and style these cuts are reminiscent of children’s drawings. They are simple and iconographic—loosely drawn in outline form. As drawings they suggest innocence; as razored cuts in flesh, however, they subvert this initial reading and speak instead of the denial of innocence, the betrayal of innocence. 

By desecrating my body and denying myself the protection of my skin, I disrupt the private space of my ‘self’, I trespass in this manner in order to confess to the compulsive nature of the desire to be seen. I also insist, through the invasiveness of cutting, that intrusion is inherent in the realization of this need. The first several of these ‘drawings’ refer to penetration. They speak of sexual, physical and metaphorical entry into the space of the self.

SOAP POPE

In exploring psychologically charged moments of childhood I hope to suggest the vulnerability and ambiguity of the experience of growing up and to encourage my viewer to question some of the rituals and games of childhood that they too may have performed. My view of childhood is not one of innocence. The games are often physically or emotionally dangerous.

All images are copyrighted.