The Antidote (2024-ongoing)

 

 

The Antidote is a cameraless photographic exploration of southern Indiana – my recently-adopted home. The pieces in this series are both a discovery of a unique Midwestern landscape with its hills and forests, and a method of grounding in the present moment and immediate geography. Cognizant of the current political landscape of the USA, constant information exhaustion, and the overreach of AI, these works are rooted in materiality, serendipity, and a hope for balance.

I rely on five acres of undeveloped woods as inspiration and subject matter to create light-sensitive works that celebrate the gift of seasonality. Bypassing cameras, I use processes such as lumen, chemigram, chromo, cyanotype, and photogram to put specimens of nature in direct physical contact with the photo paper. Many of the pieces are created in sunlight as the time of year allows, permitting natural forces to actively create the work rather than to be passively photographed.

The 24-hour news cycle is a recent phenomenon in the arc of human history that has altered our brains and created unprecedented anxiety in our society.  As it reports on so many events that are out of my direct control, I find strength in recording and existing in the present moment through seasonal blooms and wildlife . I believe it is a privilege to be able to make art in these times, but I also find it to be necessary when media messaging dictates that people panic and freeze instead. These works are a practice in observation of the tangible, an antidote to the ills of our online existence, and fuel for what may lie ahead for my country.