The Nature of Representation: Evidence and Metaphor

Historically the romantic ideologies of the sublime have followed the beauty of Landscape in paintings and photography through the centuries. This body of work continues the thread of challenging the expectation of what a photograph of Nature “should” be. In our current political and ecological climate, I believe these historic ideologies are an inappropriate approach to how we regard the landscape and can be threatening to the attention it demands. My strategy of manipulating the ink on the paper is a metaphorical approach to our human consumption of Nature. By treating the image in an objective manner, continuing to break the expectation of the traditional frame, the viewer is given the opportunity to reflect on the marks made on the paper as well as the scars we’ve left behind.

The process includes treating the images with common items such as Clorox wipes, toilet cleaner, oven cleaner, Windex, and laundry detergent among others.