Sublimation-Senior Exhibition

Artist Statement

Since the early stages of my photographic process, I’ve been drawn to the relationship between human presence and built environments, and the way time shapes both. Human existence is always traceable—through fingerprints, markings, scent, or objects left behind. What interests me most, however, is what happens when that interaction stops. Do spaces lose their meaning? Are they forgotten, reclaimed by nature, or erased entirely? These questions continue to guide my work. Although my subject matter has shifted over time, my intent has remained consistent. I use black and white photography to remove distraction and focus on the underlying themes—displacement, abandonment, and the silent evolution of spaces. Time reveals itself through wear, decay, and transformation. It ages objects just as it does the body. Time and land are inseparable forces, shaping one another in quiet, ongoing dialogue. And just like time leaves its imprint on the land, we leave behind our own—intentionally or not. We can’t exist without leaving a mark. Lately, my focus has been on amusement parks. These spaces are full of people and energy, designed to distract and entertain. But through my lens, I aim to present them differently—to create the illusion of emptiness in places that are far from abandoned. In doing so, amusement parks begin to resemble monuments: structures that once served a purpose, now standing as symbols of transience and collective experience. I use long exposures to blur or erase the crowd, rendering human figures as faint, ghost-like forms. Their presence becomes ambiguous—there, but not quite. This approach speaks to a broader sense of alienation. Even in highly populated spaces, there’s a disconnect, a sense of being present but not fully engaged. These photographs explore that tension—the visible absence, the emotional residue, and the way places carry memory long after the people have moved on. We always leave something behind, even if it’s just the suggestion that we were once there. Though the images may appear empty, they hold a quiet fullness—of time, of memory, of human trace. Amusement parks, in this context, become more than sites of play. They become monuments to impermanence, to the distance between presence and connection, and to the unspoken history we leave embedded in the places we touch.