Artist Statement

My project is a personal contemplation of global, environmental, food, culture, and identity issues. The approach is a fun, unexpected, lighthearted meshing of foods and objects and visual twists. While in essence a continuation, the project’s evolution took several turns, and a part of it explores the symbiotic relationships between the indoors and outdoors.

I explored prickly pear with needles as a food metaphor for national identity and a menacing grenade and pomegranate, an innocent fruit full of symbolism that share the same name, by meshing them together. I realize that meshing these objects together against a desolate white background heightens the eeriness, anticipation, suspense, and tension along with the playfulness.

The idea behind the first images shot in the series, the green rotis (tortillas) and flying pitas, and the last brined image are in line with the centered objects against a white backdrop but have a more dynamic interaction with their environments. These three images lent themselves to a multimedia approach incorporating animation and sound.

The images can be reinterpreted in multiple ways. My photographs often puzzle and trigger the imagination. This final project is a conclusion of a semester yet remains open-ended.

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