Artist statement: While conventionally the photographic portrait is anticipated to reveal something of a subject to a viewer, I am instead drawn to the potentials of queer representational in/visibility through the performance of photographic dis/appearing acts. My figure is routinely buried beneath costumes whose embellished surfaces mutually entice yet resist interrogation while the image terrain is manicured, foreshortened, made to emit an implausible glow. In the Altavista works, I explore ways to productively imbed AI imaging technology into my existing practice, fabricating simulations of the natural world that then serve as digital habitats that house my figure. These works reflect my ongoing interest in photographic fictions, synthetic selves and the drawing out of tensions between surface and depth, natural and artificial in the photograph.

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