{I + Vii = Viii} is a series of color transparencies that examine the concepts of alienation, fear, and anxiety as they exist and are fostered in our contemporary culture through various devices. By perpetuating this standard, these primal emotional states have become the norm, the social fabric of our post industrial lives laying just beneath the surface undetected where they alter our internal characters silently and wholly. Weakening our sense self, compromising our individuality, and molding us into puppets, we often succumb to these tools of manipulation without our knowledge.
Represented as portraits, these new physiognomies attempt to challenge beliefs of ones own condition, by representing exterior portraits that mirror this internal crisis, bringing these suppressed emotional states to the surface for inspection. By turning to influences in photography, literature, and horror cinema I am able to create a visual language in which to enliven these characters based on expected notions of how these states are visualized and accepted in our culture. I invite the viewer to acknowledge these exposed inner emotional states visually.