Fractured

*The portraits submitted are from a larger body of work titled Fractured. Fractured reflects an evolving responsiveness to the new world I find myself in: the American South. Originally from Miami, Florida, I often joke that Miami isn’t really part of the South – it is the northernmost tip of Latin America. Moving to Chapel Hill, North Carolina, six years ago, I set out to create work rooted in my newfound environment. Since then, my photography has been a visceral response to the curiosities, contradictions and complexities of my Southern surroundings. Fractured oscillates between unsettling, often ambiguous portraits of Southerners and complicated landscapes. The results of this recent work are striking, rich with contradictions and layered with tension – often echoing the thick-soupy, sometimes oppressive, atmosphere of the South itself. Both alluring and cautionary, the images in Fractured invite the viewer to look and simultaneously turn away. There is an undercurrent of morbid fascination, a reflection of our current fractured moment, pulling at both the heart and the nerves. The characters and places in Fractured form a constellation: an interconnected web of stories and spaces. Seeking to resist stereotypes or pull the viewer into easy narratives, I aspire to present a complex portrait of the South; one that invites reflection without dictating meaning.