Recipient of the project support grant through Center for Photographic Art (2023)
We are Made of Many Suns is a project composed of abstract, representational, and figurative images relating to the Mahayana Buddhist concept, Sunyata. This concept teaches that all phenomena are empty of independent existence. Emptiness in this framework is not absence or a void; it is a condition in which everything arises. I use this concept to explore blackness as both form and formlessness, the foundation of all existence, an origin point. These concepts offer a contemplative and vast meditation on a holistic existence, inviting deeper reflection on the interdependence of all things. I employ acts of minimalism, texture, form, light, shadow to speak towards complex belief systems.
These images construct a space for reflection, encouraging viewers to consider their place in the fabric of reality. I offer a visual and imaginative space to evoke curiosity and promote integration into the unknown. This project calls into question Western ideologies focused on separation and individuality, while simultaneously expanding on existence as a relationship to all things and continual evolution of being.
We are Made of Many Suns is a photographic journey traversing time and space through moments of observation, stillness, and transformation. It is a narrative focused on interdependence and unity within a seemingly fragmented world. This narrative asks us to consider the possibility of connection within disconnection, to see the patterns of creation and destruction simultaneously. In this way, each image functions as its own star, sustaining its own solar system, and effectively, its own cosmology. Each image holds its own story, its own history, its own memory. They then come together to form their own universe, a complex constellation; a sequence of life, suffering, healing, expansion, and exploration.
