Your latest collection is your third collection and in some ways interrupts what you were toying with in the other two collections. Was that just a need to shift aesthetically or was that a personal shift reflecting in your art?
This latest collection is both a detour from previous works and an intersection of all my styles. I am often bored from working a few years on one series so there is a natural shift that happened in terms of subject matter – yet I feel there has been a progression of surrealism existing for years in my work that really came full circle in this collection. In fact, I would go so far as saying this collection demanded it.
In addition, there have been such significant shifts in my life over the last five years there really was no way for it not to affect my art. My mother died in 2007 and shortly after I photographed the slaughterhouse for the first time as a means of literally facing and processing that death through my art. In 2009 my father died as well. For the first time in my life I could not shoot. I’d gone totally numb. The loss of my creative outlet was almost worse than the loss of my parents. For two years the only interest I had was this subtle intrigue in what it would be like to shoot nudes in a slaughterhouse. At first I ignored the idea because I dismissed it as perverted and simply an impossible task. But it stuck with me for years. I have never considered myself to be a conceptual artist but when an idea, a concept, a vision haunts you quietly for years – at some point you have to listen. Suddenly my work wasn’t about capturing something strange or sensual but capturing both of those elements while confronting one of the biggest fears we all have – death. Combing aspects from my past collections: journalism/realism + the sensual beauty of the nude. Realism: the shooting for the sake of the unique energy that exists in any environment that can’t ever be duplicated (a set/studio can help a photographer contrive a photo but it is never equal to what it is like to shoot in a real situation or location). The sensual because it is something that gets the viewer to pay attention
Perhaps for the first time in a long while (since my journalism days) I had something to say, communicate to others: That there is beauty in death and also, there is death in beauty. I guess I am trying to remind people to look for the beauty in all situations no matter how intense they are.
A favorite memory from one of your shoots?
After 10 days of shooting in the slaughter house my friend and I were eating chips and drinking a beer with our tops off and pig heads in a barrel. I looked at her and said, “We have gotten way too comfortable.”
How long did you have to spend in the actual slaughterhouse to feel complete in this series?
The first time I shot in a slaughterhouse was in 2008. It took two years for the idea of the current series to evolve, form, and be set-up. When I returned to shoot the nudes in 2011 it was a 10 day project. I want to return to shoot more – however, if I couldn’t go back I feel satisfied with what I have shot. For the first time in my career as a photographer I feel satisfied with a series of photographs. That is a feeling that I think is rare for any artist. To be satisfied.