“Silver” (2018-21)
“Silver” is a series of staged and candid photos, and digital collages created from those photos.
Photography and digital collage are significant parts of my process. Photography helps me understand the glow-y light I want in my paintings, and digital collage helps me push abstract composition. Sometimes I also draw on top of the photos/collages (digitally, with iPhone’s markup tool).
I began “Silver” by spray-painting objects that I found in my yard. Then, I staged still life photos from those objects. I made this series for the joy and beauty of light, but also to create images where you can’t quite tell what you are looking at. I love visual spaces that aren’t too literal.
Also, despite the still life images, these photos are here in “abstraction” because they are more about seeing light abstractly, rather than about the still life itself. These photos were a direct precursor to the abstraction of “Abolitionist Summer”.
Finally, I didn’t start my current floral work until 2 years after I shot “Silver”, but composing this series absolutely informed The Netflix Project, and all the flowers that have come after.
To this day, I still stage and shoot my own photos for my floral work (except for special request flowers that aren’t local, in which case I use licensed photos).