Roadkill Cyanotypes

Roadkill Cyanotypes captures the evidence or blue print of an accidental human intervention. Here, something commonly overlooked or avoided, this ephemeral physical material is portrayed in a blue ethereal space for a chance at post mortem immortality.

This ongoing project of ‘photograms’ uses a cyanotype process and found roadkill roadsides. By placing the actual carcass on a UV sensitive page a silhouette of the exact position and size the animal occupies on the road. The same ultraviolet rays coming from the sun that dry out this animal are the same rays used to make this 1:1 scale print. To allow the animal to decompose on the grass in hopes to allow it’s matter to be used by others, rather than desiccate on the concrete, the carcass is then placed on a green patch that is almost always only a few feet away.

Currently produced in the suburbs of southern Ontario, Roadkill Cyanotypes attempts to speak to the intersection of roads and these animal’s habitats as housing and building grows exponentially, and uses roadkill as a symbol of urbanization.

Fireworks

Fireworks are used as a form of light sculpture as they are slow captured amongst various landscape scenes. The landscapes appear serene, in contrast to the way these forms of light are commonly experienced. The light flows as a fountain from a source over and into the scene, creating reflection or mimicking the seemingly explosive foliage amongst it.  

Land and Sky

Land and Sky explores themes of human and nature, reflecting on the question of how we connect with the natural around us. I explore this through staged interventions in a ‘natural’, outdoor landscape. Using photographic aesthetics and traditions alongside inspiration from photographers such as Edward Burtynsky, Andy Goldsworthy, and John Pfahl, this is an extension of the altered landscape.

As I manipulate the landscape I put on seemingly ritualistic performances for the camera, collaborating with temporal materials such as fire, ice and light. The landscape becomes a backdrop to create a complimentary dichotomy with the objects and elements I place within it. The final images leave the viewer questioning how it has been made or what exactly they are looking at. It is the images’ ambiguity that transforms the mundane into something otherworldly or mysterious. The images’ enigmatic qualities leave its meaning subjective; the work can be read having environmental undertones while also possessing philosophical interpretations.

Paper Tree

As a "landscape photographer", I wanted to work with a single tree for this project.  On a journey into my shooting lands, I was compelled by the shape of a dead tree and immediately I felt the urge to wrap the tree. While wrapping the tree with toilet paper it became a process of mummifying the tree.

The white tree becomes iconic as it is separated from the rest of the landscape. It is no longer part of where it came from; the tree now takes on a new presence as the dominating object in the scene, a white anomaly among the natural trees. The act of wrapping the tree in paper almost aims to preserve it while also bandaging the tree in it's own material.   I have taken the mischievous act of toilet-papering and turned it into a caring healing act. There is a sense of healing and an attempt to breathe new life into a dead tree by taking it on a journey before its final stage in death. This raises the question; as a society, is nature viewed as a disposable commodity?

The test polaroids, taken on 8 year expired polaroid, display the process of holding a wrapped tree in these environments. The person holding the tree looks up at it, further emphasizing its monument like status. 

Present in Absence

Nature appears to perform as fire and light to move through tree and park scenes, turning the natural world into a stage and the camera into the audience. The viewer is invited to step beyond the print surface, into the dense black throughout the images, into a place of emptiness.

The light performer is not seen in the images; instead, we see their path left behind; their presence is experienced, despite their absence. This implied performance, allowing a viewer to envision and reflect on the work’s creation.  The use of fire becomes integral, as it has the power to destroy and thus negate. It dually represents light and the potential for absence. The ambiguity of what is present and absence in these dark scenes raise questions of where one might stand among nothingness. 

Forest

Forest, is a series where multiples of common material are playfully arranged in banal forest landscapes to create an enigmatic or magical scene. The materials are taken out of context and through lighting and arrangement take on new presence within the autumn forest.  

Red Chair

A common chair, red to contrast with its environment, is taken outside and placed within various landscape scenes. The chair invites a viewer to “take a seat” implying human presence amongst the human-less landscape. However, the chair’s whimsical persona leaves this invitation in awkward positions or in an unlikely situation.