“Supercritical”

I had grappled with the idea to exhibit subjects that can explore relationships between real-world phenomenon and my own experiences. I recently had the opportunity to focus on a specific area of state of matter, namely supercritical fluid. In my understanding, supercriticality refers to matter that exists outside of a liquid, solid, or gas when subjected to immense heat and pressure. It only exists in spaces such as chambers capable of containing a substance under such extremities, and notably possesses a ghostly, radiating presence.

The idea of it was one that I likened to my experience with gender and standards of masculinity upheld by individuals in my youth that embodied them, and ones that struggled to fully emulate the same. Its dialogue concerns itself with the manner I was to present myself, of which was different than the person I’ve grown to recognize in me as an artist and individual. It refers more to my sense of belonging feeling different to what I was told and expected of in my youth through patriarchal and influential male figures of my life, and is representative through the visual distortions of an entity ceasing to fully, naturally exist in a space as they grow less embedded in its tangibility.

I utilized lower lighting with multiple gels, coupled with a slower shutter speed, and photographed digitally in a motion that created long, flowing lines of an afterimage in the sensor, a method that I admittedly had never fully contended with to use as the basis for a project before. But in doing so, I feel that I’ve been able to make for a conceptual study of portraiture that directly roots to my own being, and together non-traditional methods, lived experience, and real-world phenomenon into a visually comprehensive collection of photographs.