FINE ART
AMERICAN DREAM
American Dream was created in collaboration with Jeff Williams and began by traveling the rural south United States by automobile. A merging of personal experience, dreams and an “on the road” documentation of American culture inspired this work. The concept of the work was to develop and blend together actual events, memory, humor, cultural, and historical references in order to challenge the definition of what it means to document a location in time and place with one still photograph.
Our decision to make this work developed out of the desire to travel without a camera. Upon returning to our studio we created highly detailed dioramas made from mostly recycled and found materials based upon our blurred memories, journal entries and sketches made during the trip. Our work reflects on conveying an experience, and a longing to deconstruct how memory functions, both individually and collectively as a culture.
We lit these miniature scenes with a variety of continuous light sources and photographed with a high-resolution large format scanning back camera, producing highly detailed large face-mounted photographs. The final prints are true to the dioramas we created; the only digital alterations are color balance, saturation and curve adjustments. In this aspect, we are deeply influenced by modernist and documentary photographers of the 20th century yet challenging the notion of the purist documentarian.
Learning to compromise through collaboration is both challenging and exciting; merging creatively is complex but mostly rewarding. We view the American Experience very differently. I was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Jeff is from Memphis, TN. The blending of photography, sculpture, and drawing to form a new documentation compels us both forward. American Dream has been exhibited internationally.
Our decision to make this work developed out of the desire to travel without a camera. Upon returning to our studio we created highly detailed dioramas made from mostly recycled and found materials based upon our blurred memories, journal entries and sketches made during the trip. Our work reflects on conveying an experience, and a longing to deconstruct how memory functions, both individually and collectively as a culture.
We lit these miniature scenes with a variety of continuous light sources and photographed with a high-resolution large format scanning back camera, producing highly detailed large face-mounted photographs. The final prints are true to the dioramas we created; the only digital alterations are color balance, saturation and curve adjustments. In this aspect, we are deeply influenced by modernist and documentary photographers of the 20th century yet challenging the notion of the purist documentarian.
Learning to compromise through collaboration is both challenging and exciting; merging creatively is complex but mostly rewarding. We view the American Experience very differently. I was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Jeff is from Memphis, TN. The blending of photography, sculpture, and drawing to form a new documentation compels us both forward. American Dream has been exhibited internationally.
