Statement

As we continue to make more images of ourselves than ever, while thinking less about them, my work expands the conversation around photographic portraiture. For me, successful portraits are quiet-but-powerful; pairing strength and vulnerability with an authentic expression, all of which helps create a connection with the viewer. I'm also interested in how people are shaped by places and experiences, as well as how to expand the ways we represent people and places photographically.

To accomplish this, I observe, interact with, and ask questions of individuals and locations. While working in America as a Canadian, I better understood the country through talking to people in and out of the studio. These exchanges, sometimes paired with quiet reflection, can build a raw, psychological surface within the resulting portrait, though specific impressions usually say more about the viewer's experiences and biases than anything significant about the sitter.

In representing people without their faces, I think about how images of places and objects can contain vital information about someone’s identity. In responding to places, I focus on often-overlooked elements that in some way feel essential.

Many of my current projects start as a book with a related exhibition, installation, print or online presentation coming afterward. Some current in-progress book projects include Psychological Surface, a series of studio portraits, When it's over, wake me, a flip book of 50 performative self-portraits made in the weeks leading up to the 2020 U.S. election, and Refuge, a zine of shelter-giving shadows from Marfa, TX.

Bio

I have published and exhibited photographic work in North America, as well as internationally. My studio portrait project, Philly Style, representing the personal style of 51 people, was exhibited at the Philadelphia Photo Arts Center (PPAC) in 2019.

Having lived and worked as an artist, journalist and entrepreneur on four continents helps me quickly achieve rapport with a wide range of portrait subjects. The founder of EDGE YK, an alternative magazine based in Canada’s Subarctic, I'm strongly influenced by documentary storytelling both in and out of the studio while understanding its challenges and limitations.

While living in Toronto in 2002, I learned to make images using a 35mm SLR originally purchased to photograph me as a child. Today, I see photography as an increasingly democratic visual lingua franca used to disseminate a wide variety of ideas.

I hold an MFA from the University of Houston, as well as a Certificate in Contemporary Practices from the PPAC (currently Tilt Institute).