NONESTICA - derived from the Latin phrase "non-est" - means that of which does not exist. Commonly referred to as the Continent of Imagination, or more simply put, the Land of OZ.
Image making has always been a method of saving lost moments after my father's death in 2002 (which sparked my interest in photography), but in my most recent ventures with photography in my professional life, I find many of my experiences with it to be entirely isolating. My father passed away and left my life before I really knew who he was, or who I was. His absence fueled my creative energy, and he presented himself in my photographs. And now, almost 10 years later, image after image, I’ve constructed my own history. In OZ, I had discovered that my father wasn’t dead. This world, universally accepted as a place attainable only within times of grey, or want, had provided an escape from a daunting reality. My father, and I, or anyone, lived within the work I created.
Consequently, photography is my inability to reconcile with my living self. This image series deals with the concept of being trapped within an image, or living vicariously through images.
NONESTICA is a poetic assimilation of my dealings with reality, as seen here far from an unreal world—a journey through my home, a life-long residence of constructed and recycled memories—after OZ. This is an examination of the oppositional—The fact that my father is gone, buried; and that a photograph is merely paper, and bone, merely sand in the deadly desert.
Note: these images are photographs of the c-prints, not scans of the negatives.
"Untitled Mirror # 2"
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