Process - Contemporary Printmaking

  Pushing the boundaries of printmaking, I am constantly developing new ways to size, manipulate, layer, and blend my photos in Adobe Photoshop to create depth, perspective, texture and lighting similar to that of classical mediums. I developed a process that I refer to as contemporary printmaking. Every element in my compositions, from the tiniest flowers to the contour of the landscape, is a photograph--sometimes 40 or more individual photographs--that I took, prepared and positioned on a digital canvas. The physical artwork is a pigment ink print on a fine art watercolor rag.

  My collection of thousands of images I've taken represents thousands of moments across time and space as I emerged from captivity as a 23-year-old single mother of three toddlers to experience the “real” world for the first time. I searched the natural world for answers I believed I would find only far outside of human constructs, if I could only deconstruct them and thereby achieve our next escape. Even as I was processing a massive volume of new information about the world and aggregating it toward survival for myself and my children, I began aggregating the camera's snapshots of reality to represent a new reality that would transcend the time and space in which I felt myself constrained.

  Examination of my photo compositions and digital scrolls, with all of their many components and pieces is an archaeological dig to unearth the artifacts of my past. Under the surface are discoveries that suggest exploration of our society as a set of constructs that declare a norm and an other and conspires to keep the “others” relegated to the margins.