Artificial Archetype

Social media is ubiquitous in contemporary society with Instagram having roughly one billion monthly active users. The combination of constant bombardment and social conformity has made idealised beauty standards inescapable and escalated body dysmorphia in teens and young people.

Artificial Archetype challenges beauty standards enforced through social media platforms and how it can affect perceptions of ourselves, from small alterations to full face filters. Using data from the 50 most followed females on Instagram, I have altered my facial features to align with the archetypal appearance and show the progression from my own face to the ideal face.

A Dangerous Liaison? The symbiotic bond and biodiversity of the Peak District

The Peak District National Park contains some of the most beautiful countryside in England but this has resulted in part from human modification of the landscape, resulting in change to the natural habitat. Some perceive this as a negative human impact but I want to challenge the view that such change is inevitably destructive. as this area depends upon a symbiotic bond between animals and the humans who rely on them for work. I have lived in this area for most of my life. By using images of animals and statements from those who care for these animals, I have explored the natural, social and economic benefits that derive from this connection between man and beast and their mutual reliance. 

Fading Grass + Tree Vortex

Taking inspiration from the language and tradition of the sublime and the concept of nothingness, the work exposes this aesthetic to current technological processes. The aim is to explore duality by conflating the actual and the virtual image. Landscape images are merged with original geometric virtual work creating an entirely new and impossible landscape which has evolved from reality into a hybrid between the virtual and the actual. The juxtaposition of the natural landscape and the digital allows for an unexpected exploration of the concept of nothingness and the aesthetic of the sublime, and the questions it raises on how the distinction between the actual and the real is indiscernible and immaterial.

In the Garden

‘In the Garden’ is a cinematic series, exploring psychological states and the uncanny within domestic spaces. The images themselves are arrested, however the narratives are not, as these suspenseful scenes have been constructed to provoke questions for the viewer which have no answers, but at the same time have infinite answers. These images have been situated within garden settings; a familiar domestic location that we assume is safe for us. Yet a sense of unease creeps in with the introduction of cinematic devices such as mysterious sources of light and fog, inscrutable facial expressions and buildings with unrevealed interiors. Something isn’t right…

An atmospheric disturbance of the unified figure

Focusing on the interrelationships between movement, the body and environment. Natural elements are incorporated, introducing chance, and resulting in unexpected, unintentional forms where body and clothing merge together into unified but transitory sculptural forms and fleeting gestures. The images capture the in-between moments beyond what the human eye normally can see. Using photography, the camera can freeze, defy gravity, creating an extended duration from what we could consciously perceive. The influence of surrealism and the unconscious has provoked the departure from the typical pose. Rather than revealing the clothing as the focus, shape, dynamic movement of body and fabric together expresses energetic expansiveness of the whole figure. The figure occupies more space, more powerfully than is normally possible.

You and the Landscape 

Identity, location and memory form the premise of this body work, looking at the significance of place and the importance of the location to the person. All the locations chosen are based off people who hold importance to the photographer; capturing the location and the feelings they hold towards the place. Phenomenology plays apart as it is the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view. With the use of postproduction methods such as photographic overlays and photo montage to edit the images to produce the feeling of time passing and the changing of the landscape.