Viewers have never seen my images, yet they “remember” them. My work uses a unique visual language that evokes old memories and conjures new ones.
For the past 30 years I’ve pushed the boundaries of traditional photography. Imagined worlds are created out of existing and invented pictures that are manipulated through an elaborate process of photocopying, painting and collaging. These transformed images barely resemble their starting points.
The result is a series of elegiac grainy black and white pictures of trees, flowers, animals, houses and people, produced either as large single-image photographic murals or wall-sized montages.
Enigmatic and vast, their behemoth scale is of paramount importance. Viewers are transported, immersed – almost enveloped – in these monumental alternative universes.
There are suggestions of narrative, but the stories are left vague and open-ended.
Quietly dramatic, these hauntingly mysterious images create a sublime dreamscape that is both familiar and longed for.
Recent solo shows: George Eastman Museum, Mt Holyoke Art Museum, Addison Gallery of American Art (Artist-in-Residence), Hyde Collection
Selected group shows: Smithsonian, Norton Museum, MFA Houston, Fogg Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Metropolitan Museum
Selected Collections: Metropolitan Museum, Fogg Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum, Eastman Museum, Norton Museum
Selected Honors: Yaddo, Bellagio, Bogliasco, MacDowell
Photo by Victoria Sambunaris
