She Rises

Series of digital photographs, 2009
These multi-layered photos grew out of postoperative self-portraits. I had searched a form of presenting this marked body in a confrontational, direct, and also, poetic and universal way. Time passed, autumn leaves fell on surfaces recalling death and decay; beyond this, those leaves were signs of change and renewal. So I melted images of a sore body with a reflected sky and branches, with vivid patterns of leaves; all bearing both, beauty and decomposition. The woman’s body holds scars; she is marked by her injuries, marked by the beautifying painting that the vegetation draws on her body.