Info

I grew up as an army brat, living in Puerto Rico, Germany, Oklahoma, New York and Connecticut. As a young girl I was intrigued yet afraid of many usual childhood toys, such as the dolls and clowns that my friends played with. Images of these characters haunted both my waking life and dream state, and have now worked their way into my art.

I earned my Bachelor of Fine Art in Photography and Visual Communications Design from the Hartford Art School. I have received numerous awards and scholarships and was one of a few students who received the University of Hartford President to President Scholarship for Outstanding Achievement.

My photographs contain a touch of realism, distortion, and an element of fantasy. My work is comprised of self-portraits. Each portrait is different from the other and provides a portal into each character's individually.

In our society, children are gender-coded from birth, even more so with girls than boys. They are introduced to dolls early on, and pink is their assigned color, as seen in baby and doll clothing. Long hair is a traditional symbol of feminine appeal as is being thin. Girls use dolls as surrogates for themselves as they replicate the relationship with their mothers. During maturity, innocence withers as the young discard their toys and assume the role of matriarch.

Several years ago I realized that my childhood was uprooted many times, due to my family being in the military overseas, giving me insight into different cultures and societies. Along with the recognition from past experience comes the realization that I have never felt the urge to assume traditional gender roles.

For me Photography has always been a means of self-expression. My creative process is a fusion of personal experiences, Victorian-inspired couture, moody atmospheres and timeless elements laced with clandestine symbolism. Using the doll as my portrait subject I have created my photography thesis “Perception.” Therefore, this body of work is the object of meticulous investigation and transformation questioning the role of women. This investigation examines the role of “girl” as a clown, the first communion, adolescence, the queen bee, twins and the alter ego. Western culture tells us that the Barbie doll and the fashion model are identical twin idealized concepts of feminine beauty, subverted in my work to be equally compelling. To camouflage and complicate my concept further, I chose to make self-portraits.

A consistent subject throughout the history of photography is the self-portrait. An outstanding example is Hippoltye Bayard's Self Portrait as a Drowned Man (1840). The work depicts the photographer dead, which was his fantasy acting as a metaphor for the fact that he was not the first to announce the discovery of this medium. That went to William Henry Fox Talbot and Jean-Louis Daguerre. Women practitioners, such as American photographer Cindy Sherman and Dutch photographer Loretta Lux, have also used the concept of “self” and “innocence.”

Victorian lace and tight bodices are super-imposed over stylistic influences including Chinese porcelain and anime. Inspiration can be seen from American movies such as Ridley Scott's Blade Runner and Tim Burton's films, especially the highly stylized, ultra-perfect female characters in Corpse Bride.

These images are heavily distorted suggesting the grotesque. Flawlessly detailed eyes, mouths and faces echo mask-like mannequins, which are universally dehumanized. This is my visual critique of these various concepts of feminine beauty, roles that are encoded and projected onto women.