Utopia: Utopia Confounded

Through this project I attempted to portray the confusion that results from the search for utopia. These photographs are about how what initially was the realization of someone’s dream can be deteriorated into a state of disorder. The randomness of the different objects that have found place near one another and the different textures that arise from such juxtapositions are one of the focuses of these photographs.

Persona: Relative Identity

These photographs are my attempt to explore the persona individuals project through resemblances and differences. Contrasting siblings and strangers as they interact, these images blur familiar lines of identification and attempt to capture the ways through which identity is relative and connected to those around us.

Emulation: Variations on Ruth Bernhard

Ruth Bernhard’s career as a photographer and artist is particularly remembered for the years she dedicated to the female nude. Inspired by Edward Weston, Bernhard reinterpreted the classical female nude on more abstract terms through the use of light and shadow to emphasize the subjects’ sculptural aspects. Through my emulation of Ruth Bernhard’s work I wished to study the female nude within an indoors setting and under artificial light conditions similar to those characteristic of her work. I focused on attempting to recreate those prints of her repertoire with pronounced highlights and contrast rather than her softer and grainier prints while creating variations on the elegant postures of her models.

Mapping: Intermediate Spaces

I have chosen to map the bathrooms of office buildings around campus because they represent the narrow overlap between public and private space. They are both and neither at the same time. The bathroom, initially a personal space, is pushed into the public realm when it enters the context of the work place but nevertheless retains the intimacy intrinsic to it. Through this project I attempted to map the very specific and ambiguous nature of these spaces. Mirrors are a recurrent motif throughout this project because they are one of the bathroom’s defining features as well as allow for particular photographic effects. They enable a layered exploration of these multifaceted spaces.