Artist Statement

The phrase 20/20 vision usually connotes perfect clarity — a sharply-focussed vision of the world — yet, so far, the year 2020 has completely mystified the future in front of me and forced me to sit with uncertainty. Under the cloud of a global pandemic, my lack of assuredness is not a personal affliction but a universal ailment. The ground beneath our feet feels less secure that before and the nature of tomorrow seems less dependable. Daily headlines proclaim that we live in ‘uncertain times’. 

As an Arts student in her final year of university, standing on the precipice of ‘real life’, these uncertain horizons have made the prospect of starting a new career extremely unnerving. I have temporarily surrendered my art-world ambitions to the more stable promise of public service. The instability of daily life and the silence of self-isolation, has spurred much self-reflection about my future, my desires and my aspirations. 

In my moments of doubt, I find great solace in the photography of Vivian Maier, a woman whose self-portraiture reveals an unflinching willingness to question her own identity. Often positioned in front of a mirror, Maier fearlessly pointed her camera toward the woman in front of her. It is rarely a single subject that stares back but multiple women, fractured by the fault lines in her mirror. For Maier, the act of taking her own self-portrait was like seeking communion with herself; like a means of reconciling the divergent strands of her own identity through taking a single image. 

Responding to the theme 'perfect 20/20 vision', I aspire, like Maier, to take my own portrait. At a moment in my life when the world outside is obscured by doubt, I plan to use photography to reflect my search for inner clarity.