Natural Configuration is a composite series featuring floral and portraiture studies. The era-ambiguous images created using 19th Century photographic methodology speak to the perceptive veil between reality and recorded history. A tension that can be found in archives of both Australian and LGBTQ+ histories respectively.
Adopting the language of the Australian bush though dynamic lighting design and intense contrast afforded by the tintype process. The series offers a dual visual experience: commentary on Australian native flora being both perceived through a foreign national gaze and consumed outside of its origins. Contrasted with images of contemporary queer people that have been styled to appear outside of time, in a world of their own. Together they invite a re-seeing of what we understand of our collective past, institutional archives, and recorded history. Raising shared themes of resiliency, presentation, and self-sustained regeneration.
