In the contemporary age of the “selfie,” audiences are provided exponential access to self-authored portraits.  While the selfie is inherently replaceable and even disposable, often disappearing or easily ignored among multitudes of media, the practice of self-portraiture contains certain affirmations and decisions that cannot be easily erased. Thus, self-portraiture engages a carefully calculated set of intentions, decisions, and processes to create a rendering that in most cases endures. Many artists are choosing to peer through the camera and produce mechanical reproductions that confirm their existence in digital screens, prints, and video. These practices of self-representation result in images that may or may not offer the artist’s “true” character, as we are not our mirror reflections; what we see in the mirror is a reflection of oneself but not "the self." We are nevertheless provided the opportunity to see their self-study and engage with the artist as both maker and subject. 

Trust in my Frame is a solo exhibition of photographs and a video installation premier that work together to tell a story about a search for the self using light and composition. The images draw from selections of self-portraits, autobiographical in nature, presenting self-reclamation in the form of visual narrative. Trust in my Frame marks significant turning points in a life, many unexpected and incomprehensible, while the works themselves are both reassurances and fragments. The objective is to highlight the tensions and curiosities one faces as part of their journey.

The larger presented story is about feminine identity at the event of mid-life. Using degrees of dramatic poses and a constellation of personas we come to understand that this project is as endless as the continuous movement of our bodies through life itself. Each look invents the other and another. Furthermore, the works require collaboration as subjects and objects are put in dialogue with each other. We not only place trust in the frame and mask, but also recognize when such frames and masks must be abandoned in order to look outward and toward the other.

Trust in my Frame contemplates what it means to (re-)invent, document, and display one’s mirror image—the motivation to show oneself in many forms and iterations. It also invites the viewer to reflect on life’s sequences—moving between a spectrum of stress, distress, centeredness, joy, and calm—to reveal the power of remaining present and searching inward before arriving at insight, intuition, and possibility.