Artist Statement: Part I

In this set of images, I strove to emulate the work of Collier Schorr. Schorr, an American artist, is largely influenced by German culture; more specifically, her photographs reflect an expatriate's initially outsider perception of the country, which is replaced, in time, by a more intimate understanding. In her series of arrangements, Blumen, she manipulates the natural to create "site-specific" constructions. I think that the irony of these images appealed to me; she, as I did as well in my photos, plucked the flowers from where they grew, only to re-wire them into a natural landscape that was, in fact, not their own, rendering an artificial reality. Also, there is a a bitter humor in these flower's fate; as Schorr described, the flowers are at once "elevated and trapped." In picking them, and then trapping them rather cruelly in wire, I have hastened their approaching death. However, photographing the blooms lends their beauty an unusual permanence, allowing them to outlive what would otherwise be a an ephemeral loveliness.

I think then, what I most admire in Schorr, what drove me to emulate her work, is that she has discovered an intelligent method of photographing flowers, without merely allowing the subject's inherent charm to carry the shot.