statement

Since leaving University in 2010, I have been working on self-portraits, being my own willing and available model. More recently I started taking portraits of other people and I am interested in making work that has a disquieting or disconcerting resonance.

I have always made things with my hands and now I try to find ways to combine my fine art background with photography. I have used origami in the past as props in my photographs, but in this series 'Cosmic Surgery' the origami has become an integral part of the final image.

The series has three distinct stages. Firstly I photographs my sitter, then print multiple images of the subjects face and folds them into a complicated origami modular construction, which then gets placed back onto the original face of the portrait. Finally the whole thing is re-photographed.

Origami is very meditative, you can get lost in the world of folding for hours. It is also extremely delicate and fragile, so by giving each geometric paper shape somewhere to sit within the final image, the origami has been given a backbone.

There is something quite alien about the manipulated faces, as if they belong to some futuristic next generation. In these portraits the children become uncanny, while their parents are seen in a more familiar moment.

With the simple act of folding an image I can transform each face and make a sort of flattened sculpture. By de-facing my models I have made their portraits into my own creations.

bio

born: 1989, Haslach, Germany

education

Nottingham Trent University BA, 2010

selected awards/honors

Magenta Foundation 'Bright Spark' Award Winner 2013
Shortlisted for Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Award, 2012
Third place Peoples Choice, Foto8 Summer Show, 2012

selected publications

BlINK Magazine, Korea, 'Cosmic Surgery,' issue 22, April 2013
Stern FOTOGRAFIE Edition 71, Talent booklet, March 2013
GUP Magazine, 'Cosmic Surgery' cover and inside feature, issue 36, March 2013
Frankie Magazine, Australia, 'On The Face Of It', issue 52, February 2013

selected group shows

MAKE/SHIFT, Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth, July/August 2013
Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize, National Portrait Gallery, London, November 2012
f/22 Group Show, MadArt Gallery, PhotoIreland Festival, Dublin, Ireland, July 2012
Foto8 Summer Show, Foto8 Gallery, London, July 2012