Disappearing | 2012

Disappearing in Puerto Princesa , Disappearing in Point Lobos, and Disappearing in Tequepis Trail are digital collages created by combining personal travel photos of picturesque landscapes with carefully selected and altered photographs of furniture which blend and fade into their respective backgrounds.

Barely noticeable at first, the chair acts as a stand-in for the figure, an ambiguous portrait and quiet presence. It is at once a reflection of the landscape and alien to it. This body of work reflects how our memories of particular places are inextricable from the people we associate with them. The images are embedded with a sense of loneliness and longing.

After sorting through hundreds of my own travel photos of landscapes, I began to notice a similarity in the structures and compositions I was drawn to: an equal balance between sky and ground on the horizon, a clearing where a figure might belong, a lack of contrast. I am interested in how these qualities are echoed from image to image, like grasping at a memory. This digital series represents a more personal and emotional response to my ongoing investigation of the relationship between art and environment, and a departure from my material-based process.