The Ordinary Things series
This body of work explores the ways in which patterns shape our lives and the ways in which constructions of memory, experience and gender are embodied in the domestic landscape. I use common household objects as icons to encapsulate an intimate moment in time and create a subtext of something hidden yet important. The images beneath, partially disguised, depict domestic scenes where gender and sexuality are intertwined with issues of power vs. vulnerability, presence vs. absence, and public vs. private. The staging of the scene is intended to create an illusion of truth while simultaneously exposing the scene as pure invention -- an image meant to question and distort authenticity, a metaphor for the uncertainty of memory in which reality and the imagined intermingle. This fictional approach references the way we create stories over time, stories that are not always contingent upon facts, but rather upon our psychological needs: what happened to us, what we imagine has happened to us, and what we remember becomes intertwined into a personal truth. Ultimately, I want viewers to have a vague sense of recognition of this lingering moment as a common lived experience.