Canyon Woman

(Above) Are a series of digital collages created using images from the grand canyon and antelope canyon taken by me in 2018. These collages were made during the covid lockdown, in the middle of isolation. I had nothing to shoot and nothing to work towards. the only subject i had was my own body and the archives I had buried in my hard drives. When I looked through the images i realised how much i yearned to go outside, to be part of the greater landscapes, be part of something larger than me. My own insecurities and under-confidence and confusion felt small compared to these giant natural formations. The more i looked at these images (below), the more i saw bodies within them. This had been happening to me since i was a child. Seeing faces and places in tiles, marbles and rocks and sand, the lockdown triggered the urge to materialise these images that I always saw. 
These collages are an attempt to see the greater outdoors within our own selves, and questions what we become in isolation. The mirrors and windows represent visual representation, how we are always looking at ourselves through another medium or outlet. We see ourselves trough frames and mirrors and windows but never really the true version of ourselves. This paradox creates a conflict within ourselves resulting in insecurities, self doubt and shame because we never look like the representations. 

But we do look like the landscapes we see. Our skin looks like stone at times and our bodies resemble canyons, ebbing and flowing and growing over time. If we understand the body as a natural material then we may give it the same leeway we give to mountains, and in doing so we may find the lightness of being we are all craving.