Artist Statement

This set of work is meant to be viewed with the feeling of sadness and sympathy. My main influences for these pieces are from the book The Metamorphosis by Frank Kafka and The Stranger by Albert Camus. Both books explore the themes of dehumanization and estrangement.

My first theme is dehumanization and how it connects to society today. Dehumanization is to make somebody less human by taking away his/her individuality. In today’s society, this is common in most schools. This is because many schools have dress codes as well as many other rules that take away or put a cap on the youth’s creative interests and passions. In doing this, schools are dehumanizing youth by making them conform to wearing a uniform where everyone wears the exact same thing to prevent individuality. I took two separate pictures and put them together to form a diptych, two different pictures put side by side to tell a story, to express dehumanization in today’s society.

The photo of the rose with the green flame also conveys dehumanization in a metaphorical sense. The rose is meant to represent a person’s passion. Now as society tries to break a person’s passion, their passion begins to burn slowly, and when it stops burning, the passion is gone, just as the rose would disintegrate as the fire continues the burn. This was one of favorite photos to shoot because I had to use chemistry to get the flame to burn green. To create a green flame you need two things: methanol and boric acid. Combining these two substances create a solution that when burned, burn green. I had the best time trying to get the best flame for the pictures. This picture connects closer with the book The Metamorphosis because in the book, the main character, Gregor, had passion. However it was because of society’s constant attack on his passion that he was dehumanized on a daily basis.

My second theme of my photos is Estrangement and how it connects to both society and the book The Stranger. The photos of the girl on the bench more closely connect with the book The Stranger because it shows estrangement. Estrangement is to make hostile, unsympathetic, or indifferent. The pictures of the girl on the bench closely connect to The Stranger because just like the main character, Meursault, she is a loner. This interpretation is more straight forward that the next picture.

The picture of the burning book also closely connects with The Stranger in a sense that a burning book would alarm most people while burning the book wouldn’t alarm the main character, Meursault. The person holding the book is obviously not alarmed but shows estrangement because their reaction to a burning book is indifferent. One of the books subthemes is what happens if a person acts the opposite of how society expects them to act.

In conclusion, these photos are meant to bring out the emotions of the viewer, especially if the viewer has read the books. As a photographer, I have to consider how many images people look at every day and how I want a person to feel when they look at my photos. With this in mind, I always try to put deeper meaning into my photos. I do not just take photos for the sake of taking photos. I believe that pictures with meaning are always are always better pictures.