c. 2006 – 2020
Giving up solvents, tar, and all the other toxic materials did not mean giving up the urge to alter an image. I simply found another way to do it.
Photoshop became my new studio.
I started experimenting with digital painting, combining photographs, changing backgrounds, adding and removing elements, playing with scale, color, light, and perspective. Sometimes the final image had very little to do with the place where the photograph had originally been taken.
In a way, I was doing what I had done from the beginning: taking photographs apart and putting them back together. Only now there were no scissors, photocopiers, paint, or solvents. There were pixels.
I experimented a lot during these years. Some images became surreal or theatrical; others borrowed from painting, mythology, or art history. I was interested in how far I could push a photograph before it became something else.
Eventually, though, I became less interested in what I could add to an image and more interested in the person in front of me.
I began taking things away.
