Kindred Cameras Photographic Workspace Award.
ATROPHIA (THE CANDLE AT BOTH ENDS) is a work that gives a voice to the lived experience of invisible disability and chronic pain. A series in which the artist is the subject, and the body is both the canvas and the concept. Born out of a recent trip to the hospital which cascaded into a dozen days and nights of tests, examinations and operations with no conclusion. This series represents not a hero’s journey but rather one of stasis and acceptance.
The self-portraits borrow the visual language of Romantic-era paintings coupled with in-camera effects to articulate the duality of strength and vulnerability that are required to navigate the reality of physical deterioration. All images were captured as is on negative and printed on silver gelatin in a dark room, no post-production has been added, and all effects were created through practical techniques. Through this century old process, dust and scratches and fingerprints remain as a statement to authenticity and to the hand made, much like the imperfections of the human form itself. A momento mori yet at the same time a call to the will to live.
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