The Genius of the Place
The Genius of the Place waves two seemingly varied projects into one open ended narrative, overlapping a series of closely cropped studio portraits with landscape imagery. All imagery has been produced as ambrotypes on black glass.
The landscapes captures the overgrowth of native plants in historic parks and abandoned lots in Philadelphia. I began to experiment with the introduction of my own hand, using intentional light-leaks, blurs and smudges to complicate both the photographic process and the picture-plane. These images explore dynamics thematically connected to my ongoing project the "The Caregivers," while offering a physical sense of place.
The studio portraits are reinterpretations of a childhood illustration. While the people in these portraits come from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds, they wear the same flowers and wistful expressions. The work speaks to larger themes: the performance of feminine identity in American culture and universal experience of looking and being looked at.