Artist Statement
GROUND ZERO (2023)
This series focuses exclusively on the ground level of its subjects, representing a centre point or origin. In the forest, the floor is the point of transformation. Here, the trees are either rising in growth sustained by the soil, or returning in death to help increase the soil’s fertility for the next life cycle. The foliage, twigs and branches captured in these images are all familiar elements, yet the mirroring technique has created something unexpected and entirely unfamiliar. The dark background, generated by shooting under the darkness of night, immediately evokes a sense of fear. By mirroring the image across the horizontal axis and then rotating the whole thing through 90 degrees, the result creates an illusion that most people will make sense of as an entity of some form. The perception of seeing familiar patterns or objects in random stimuli is the psychological phenomenon of pareidolia.
Created from images of trees, the beings in this series, by their associated symbolism, are feminine. And indeed, to me, they appear as such. These entities represent womanhood, fertility, the giver of life, knowledge and power. However, with these images steeped in ambiguity, my hope is that each viewer will draw on their experience, memories, beliefs and thought processes to perceive something different.