Project statement:

A firework explodes; a cabbage in the light; a dog bites at your ankle...

In my image-making, I'm inspired by the flattened, color-forward, and poetic compositions of ukiyo-e and the Impressionist painters' pursuit of evoking optical sensations through careful attention to color and light. With my camera, I turn my attention to small, mundane moments that I find terrifyingly beautiful. 

I began working at Film Forum one year ago; I've now experienced the disorienting sensation of stumbling out into bright daylight after watching a movie in a dark, cool theater countless number of times -- this sensation has been a guide for me, a kind of playful metaphor for the images in this series. I'm ultimately interested in evoking a sudden and sweeping feeling of alienation from the world around you, of the limits and expansiveness of senses to interpret our external surroundings. I'm interested in tensions of subtlety and starkness, transience and stillness, absurdity and familiarity. To me, each image seeks to capture phenomenological truths of specific moments in everyday life, different floating worlds (the literal translation of "ukiyo-e"). I aim to capture these corners of perception in order to present an experience of and perspective of the world that is at once small and yet universal.