SkinsideInside
In March 2020, with all the time granted to me while the world was locked indoors, another project took its roots and sprouted. What started out as a series of self-portraits transformed into an inspection of skin; my own skin and then the skin of the plants that populated my space.
I called them ‘captive nature’, the only nature I was in contact with for a very long time.
It was a way of keeping myself grounded through my life's significant events and I wanted to create some beauty out of this suffocating air I breathed day in and day out.
As I let these images sit over time, I hoped these photos would reveal more about themselves to me.
This introspection, this inspection of skin and decay fit my fears like a glove.
Then my plants got sick as did I.
In December 2021 I was diagnosed with a rare form of skin cancer. After undergoing surgery to remove a tumour I couldn’t help but think of my series of photos as some kind of dark premonition. The work was purely therapeutic; simply an artist doing the one thing they know how to do but it became something far more important to me but this new information changed the way I looked at all these images: while everything is filtered through the light of an ever-present screen accompanied by its pixels, the jarring colours and the order perfectly represent the chaos I was experiencing, interspersed only by a few little pockets of calm.
I called them ‘captive nature’, the only nature I was in contact with for a very long time.
It was a way of keeping myself grounded through my life's significant events and I wanted to create some beauty out of this suffocating air I breathed day in and day out.
As I let these images sit over time, I hoped these photos would reveal more about themselves to me.
This introspection, this inspection of skin and decay fit my fears like a glove.
Then my plants got sick as did I.
In December 2021 I was diagnosed with a rare form of skin cancer. After undergoing surgery to remove a tumour I couldn’t help but think of my series of photos as some kind of dark premonition. The work was purely therapeutic; simply an artist doing the one thing they know how to do but it became something far more important to me but this new information changed the way I looked at all these images: while everything is filtered through the light of an ever-present screen accompanied by its pixels, the jarring colours and the order perfectly represent the chaos I was experiencing, interspersed only by a few little pockets of calm.
“ On the outside
Grows the furside
On the inside
Grows the skinside
So the furside
Is the outside
And the skinside
Is the inside
Oneside likes the
Skinside inside
And the furside
On the outside
Others like the
Skinside outside
And the furside
On the inside “
- Herbert Ponting
