These composite works aim to illustrate the idea of artificiality in the world around us and our immersion into a digital lifestyle.  These images convey the sense that we are morphing into a digital product as much as we are flesh and blood. The work mimicks the idea of how we choose to seemlessly blend into illusory worlds and present ourselves on social media to create a perception that is meant to represent how life is for us, when in reality, it takes us further away from our true self and the source of our creativity.

Through the use of photo apps and specialty filters aimed at being used with social media, we incorporate digital elements onto our images, such as a change of hair, eye color, additions of animal whiskers, cute noses and emoji characteristics, essentially digitizing ourselves far beyond the untouched digital image of our 'plain' selves.  Digital facelifts, airbrushing and tweaking of our images has become an essential part of the photo posting process and with each digital addition, we experience a loss of our natural selves.

The purpose of using exceedingly familiar locations for my self-portraits is multi-fold. These are the places that often entice us, they rely on repetition, sensory stimulation and artificiality to attract our attention. And most importantly, they are the places we feel comfortable in. They are mudane and common to us, they are places we know intimately and can almost blend into. Perhaps this is similar to ideas expressed in works by other artists such as Andy Warhol or Andreas Gursky.

These locations are visual metaphors that reminds us that we are slipping further away from nature and appear to be evolving toward and embracing artificiality.   As a child of Generation X, I think often of life pre- and post-internet and this work expresses some of my feelings about the radically different time periods.  I address my own participation and entry into these surroundings as well as the discomfort that it creates within me.

My meme project is like an advertising campaign to supplement ideas associated with creative and personal growth that are too often pushed aside or uncomfortable to address. Utilizing photography and a simple line of my own text creates attachments to the viewer’s consciousness in more ways than simply trying to convey an idea by explanation

In our changing digital culture and in an increased climate where free speech is sometimes oppressed, we have begun to modify our behavior by practicing self censorship and altering our opinions to maintain calm around us. We have also resorted to other forms of communications, such as the powerful meme. A powerful modern form of digital communication. 

Through these memes, I aim to inspire creativity and also to address topics of communication breakdown and other concepts which are deeply associated with our post-internet lives. The somewhat refined meme style was created to be used online, on social media, to be shared, liked, reposted and/or projected.   In using this format, my potential audience became unlimited and anyone with a computer or smart phone could be exposed to my ideas and communications.

The washed-out look and almost fading into the background symbolizes our obsession with digital culture and the blurring of reality and make believe that has become part of everyday life.