Artist Statement

Artist Statement ( B&W )

Photography has always been very intuitive for me, energy deep within my unconscious emerging through the images I find myself framing. As each body of work emerges, it is actually the body of work working me--asking me to wake up to the stirrings, sometimes storms, that are active deep within this spiritual being that has come to reside in this body, called Elizabeth.

Photography has been part of a cathartic process. It has, and continues to be, a part of an energetic release of an intense emotional experience--a healing of painful memories that lodged themselves inward as irrational beliefs about myself, which created so many lies about who I was and was not as a woman in this world. I lost the ability to love myself. The damage was too deep. The anger, self-hate, poor body image, and trust of others had been eroded, in but a moment's time. It was as if I had become another person, one I did not recognize.

This healing began, unbeknownst to me, in 1984, when I started photographing self-portraits. Most , if not all, of my images include a "part" of me. this awakening/cathartic process, captured through the camera ultimately lead to my liberation. The recognition of my True Self, the beautiful Spirit that I have always been, will always be, and Am, is what is deeply held within today.

There are many bodies of work surrounding this intense emotional experience, each a chapter of this spiritual purification. The images presented here are from a chapters of pain, anger, confusion and the question of why--and the introduction of the idea of surrender and hope, on an intellectual level, this being symbolized by the introduction of the cross and praying hands in some of the images. The angst was just beginning to lift, on the surface. It would be years before the stored energetic memories would be released on a deeper level. It is an ever deepening cleansing of the false self.

The layering, or the method of mutlti-exposures within one frame, is a beautiful example of my unconscious working through my imagery. The layering of images is a reflection of the "hiding" and the inability for me to recognize the irrational beliefs I was holding onto about myself due to this experience. There were so many questions and emotions, all layered on top of each other. I mistook those emotions to be who was, and thus had to act them out onto and into this world. I was searching for some sort of answer, some relief, from this pain/misunderstanding that had been remembered.

One will find the symbolic images of self, hands, whether praying or reaching--or those of a childhood doll, (these are incorporated into another "chapter" of this journey)the cross, mirrors, and word, sometimes written, others from text throughtout my work. These have been what my unconscious has called forth, knowing these to be a part of the healing properties needed in my imagery to transcend this life-altering experience.

    "How do I know why I am really here, in this place

                  till I waken to that which I Am

                      that space of nothingness

                         of stillness and peace"