Escape
The imagery in this artwork reflects the connection between two worlds through this mysterious door as an escape to paradise. Combining beautiful, idyllic scenery from the island of Seahorse Key with an entryway on a secluded street in Chicago, gives this piece a truly surreal and striking appearance.
Submerged
Graffiti and alternative architecture is always something that will garner my attention. This street corner in Toronto, Canada, was in the heart of Kensington Market, and ripe with culture, shops, and amazing coffee. You need to go there if you ever get the chance. The streets were piled high with snow that I was traipsing through to the best of my Florida-blood ability. The winter gave an entirely novel perspective over the whole view, and I mused with the idea of pushing it even further - casting it as a surreal scene submerged into Lake St. Clair in Michigan. This created an entirely new perspective that takes a few moments to fully take in. This serene quality that simply eradicated the bustling street has become something of wonder that I truly adore. This is actually the first piece I ever created for Optical Escapes.
The Road Ahead
This piece really plays a lot with the concept of the future and moving forward in life. The receding roads are jutting ahead in the frame, while converging into the center point where a tree is found. Trees often symbolize growth, which in this piece compliments the idea of moving forward in time and space, while also fostering growth within yourself. The fence or barrier that encloses the tree aims to keep you focused on your goal of self-growth - unable to move past it without succeeding.
Gatekeepers
This piece plays with a lot of different elements that reveal themselves as you continue to look and study the imagery. The sand and desertscape represent this barren land, while through the gateway, there is lush and thriving scenery. Some takeaway from this piece a feeling of the present leading into antiquity and past, with these sculptural figures as gatekeepers. Others takeaway a portal between two worlds, ready to explore each one.
Beyond
I almost cannot even begin to describe how this piece came together and into existence. This ethereal creation evokes a heavenly or mythological theme that is shrouded in mystery and intrigue. What is beyond the doorway within the clouds?
Tunneling Through
This piece plays with a lot of different elements that reveal themselves as you continue to look and study the imagery. This composition displays tunneling through a seemingly abandoned, rocky front - only to reveal another world entirely.
Intertwined
Graffiti in varying capacities is something you'll often see me capture within my cityscape work. This particular piece is near and dear to my exploring heart. In Chicago, I happened across this long abandoned building COVERED in bright graffiti colors, and at the very back of it there was a circuit breaker with all of this exposed wiring. The controlled chaos of this wiring in a structured and industrial world, as surrounded by such free-form brilliant tags just could not be ignored. Ultimately I combined this hidden structural scene with a silhouette of a single tree in the wide open field, found just near that same hidden section. The peace of that organic expanse outlining the mechanical insides of the circuit breaker plays on the tensions between industry and our environment.
Emergence
The architecture of this tower, as was framed by the stark barren tree branches on a winter morning was truly something to stop and admire. This moment, right near the shore of the frozen-over Lake St. Clair, invited me to think of the way this beautiful orange tower was emerging from the dead of winter. Commingling this idea of life and growth, I brought about the aesthetic growth out of lush fantastical greenery captured on the Pacific Coast Highway in California.
Oasis
This is another piece that is truly near and dear to my heart. On a cross-country road trip, I stopped at the White Sands National Monument in New Mexico. This is a far out of the way expanse of land that you just keep driving and driving to get to until you think you can't drive anymore, and then all of a sudden, you're there. You get out of your car and all you see is a huge desert of pure, white sand. Huge sand dunes dwarf you as you walk through this fantastical world and all you see are mountains and beautiful blue skies in the distance. Think of it like the most gorgeous never-ending beach you've ever seen in your life. Plus mountains. And no water. So, ultimately I wanted to take this feeling and bring it into the photos I captured there. Thus, I composited a crystal blue ocean landscape over-top of the white sand, making a surreal oasis unlike any other.
World of Whimsy
Wow. That's almost all I have to say when I first think about this piece and the experience to capture it. It was my first ever time actually IN a hot air balloon. I had woken up at 4:00 in the morning in the pitch black to await my transport to the balloon launch site. I was so incredibly excited I could hardly contain myself, even despite the wee-hour of the morning. With all the curiosity in the world I watched as the crew inflated these massive balloons lying on their sides, and ultimately pulled them upright. About 15 of us (yes, that's right, I was surprised too!) hopped into the basket and within minutes, we started to float up from off the ground!! That was it, we were now rising as high as the mountain-tops. In a basket. And I was thrilled. The mountain range and canyon opened up below us and the most gorgeous views ensued. The second balloon would come into view every so often, and I was so lucky to be able to capture the pure whimsy that was what it felt like to be floating peacefully along in the wind in a hot air balloon.
From Above
This piece features an ethereal view of the city of Toronto, as captured from above in the CN Tower. It was a frigid winter day, that really shrouded the cityscape with an atypically beautiful haze. This cold view was combined with an abstracted warm beach from a desolate island off of the state of Florida, creating an altered, yet positive spin, on a view of a city unknown.
Floating
Graffiti and alternative architecture is always something that will garner my attention. This street corner in Toronto, Canada, was in the heart of Kensington Market, and ripe with culture, shops, and amazing coffee. You need to go there if you ever get the chance. The streets were piled high with snow that I was traipsing through to the best of my Florida-blood ability. The winter gave a grey cast over the entire scene, where I knew underneath there lay a vibrant palette of colorful graffiti. I brought out these colors and "melted the snow" so-to-speak, by floating it atop of the imagery from Lake St. Clair. This creates an aesthetic almost as if the frost is melting in the spring and the vibrancy is emerging once again into the scene.
Mountainous Facade
This work features imagery captured on Devil's Bridge Trail in Sedona, Arizona - a beautiful trail, but brutally hot when hiking smack dab in the middle of summer. I must have drank and sweat about 2L of water in those few hours alone. However, I digress. This sweeping expanse of the trail overlooking the surrounding mountains reflects the true feeling of greatness while in nature. Coming from city-life, nature is always something that brings about a sense of mental and physical escape. Upon return to city-life, this idea of escape through boundless nature persists visually through only your memories.
Merging Landscapes
Coming from city-life, nature is always something that brings about a sense of mental and physical escape. There is this duality that exists between the modern comforts of convenience in contemporary city-life, compared to when you're away from it all in boundless nature. I have a love for both worlds, and this merging of the two is reflected here in this piece featuring a mountain range in Arizona mixed with the epitome of city-life, the city that never sleeps, New York, NY.
The Future
The expanses of modern cities, both vertically with skyscrapers, and horizontally with their sheer coverage of land, are something of wonder in and of themselves. The striking receding diagonal lines in this view, looking out onto the never-ending rail tracks in the city of Toronto, really grabbed hold of my attention. This expanse, captured on a brisk winter day in Canada, was very grey and white, which I then livened up by interspersing the radiant colors of a sunset across the Atlantic Ocean. These organic colors and textures created something a little more surreal and elevated the beauty of the existing architecture looking to the future.
Skyway
This enchanting piece is more along the lines of surreal wonder and fantasy with sprinkled scifi elements. The merging and creation of an industrial "Skyway" that floats above the horizon line into the clouds and space is something that speaks to seeking and navigating the beautiful unknown. This work features imagery from the Chicago L train in Logan Square, sunset colors from the Atlantic Ocean, and finally clouds and expanses of the sky that you could only really achieve from up high in an airplane. This combination of several elements creates this brand new environment for exploration.