My work is concerned with the objectification of beauty and the growing anonymity of the elderly in our society. I believe a clear connection exists between the media-fueled manipulation, edification and standardization of physical beauty and the increasing denial of the actual process of physical aging. To be old today is to slowly become invisible. My work is, in many ways, a critique of this postmodern iconography as it attempts to highlight not only the natural process of aging but society’s concomitant refusal to recognize it as such. My pieces attempt to draw attention to the ways in which this self-absorption is encouraged by an unfettered individualism which unchallenged serves only to fracture family ties, friendships and the larger social consciousness, creating an awkward integration when the individual no longer conforms to the established standards. I examine this growing need to connect by focusing on individual narratives. Whereas society has slowly created “fictions” and “virtual realities” to replace the real, I instead direct the spectator’s attention to the everyday real happenings of ordinary lives.
