I am a mixed media artist researching the language
of the photographic portrait. Historically my investigation focused on domestic photography, specifically the family album. Recently I have begun to study the self-portraits produced for use within social media, particularly dating apps and Instagram stories.

I think of my photographic work as anti-portraiture; through a variety of devices the model’s face is obscured. This methodology stems from a reaction against photographic history and traditional practice, which I see as exploitative and corrupt. There is an underlying narrative of the exploitation of the other, the model and the unsuspecting public by the privileged.

Geoff Dyer highlights this in ‘The Ongoing Moment’ in which he summarizes the canonical photographers who have surreptitiously shot portraits of the blind, the “ultimate natural model”. My allegiance was always with the ‘other’, and never with the ‘heroic’ figure of the photographer.

Beginning with my undergraduate studies I have looked at other ways of working. I am currently negotiating more democratic practices with my collaborators.

​Given my feelings towards much photographic practice, that it is inherently exploitative, I feel it is necessary to highlight the constructed nature of the photographic illusion whenever possible.

We live in an age that consumes images in problematic ways; we are the first generation that understands that most of the images we see are manipulated, the cover of a fashion magazine for example, but we still diet to look like the image we know is fallacy.

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