ARTIST
STATEMENT
In the summer of
2012, I was diagnosed with a psychological syndrome known as the Impostor
Phenomenon. This phenomenon is defined
as the intense, secret feeling of fraudulence in the face of success and
achievement. People suffering from this phenomenon have a deep-seeded belief
that they are a fake who have somehow “gotten away with it” and that they
aren’t who they appear to be to the rest of the world. This syndrome, I
discovered after research, is experienced by as many as 70 percent of all successful people in the world today.
This body of work
is part of an ongoing photographic self-portrait project I have undertaken as a
way to explore and understand this phenomenon within our society, our culture
and my own life as well. As a photographer,
I am interested in photographing and portraying strong intrapersonal, internal
emotional encounters that take place within individuals and our society. This body of work not only serves to
investigate emotional issues of fraudulence, but also social, cultural, and
gender-related issues of how we view and attain success in our lives and place value
on ourselves as individuals.
Digitally shot and
deeply rooted in a strong spirit of theatricality, I created these images as a
way to bridge the gap between personal perception and reality; question our
notions of personal authenticity; and explore our relationships with ourselves
as individuals. While this work is a self portrait and intensely personal, I
have chosen to keep the figures anonymous to allow ease of access for the
viewer and thereby represent the figures merely as a symbol for the collective
body of individuals who suffer from this same phenomenon.
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