Transformation
I create richly layered images that are informed by epic poetry to reflect on migration, homeland, and memory situated within what poet Jay Wright defines as an “enlarged realm of the experience.” My visual art practice deeply engages oral and written stories that contemplate speculative sources of human origin and culture. I study and re-imagine Paradise Lost through lens-based self-portraits to speculate an alternative narrative that centers the reader as protagonist. “Transformation” 2012 is a series of eight monochrome prints that visualize the mental process unique to the reader of Milton’s epic poem. I use multiple exposure and digital collage to merge, rearrange, and deconstruct my facial features, conjuring central narrative moments such as Milton’s account of Satan’s interstellar journey to Eden, the fall of man, and the turbulent process of the reader’s mind.