Saṃsāra Series

The Saṃsāra photographs were taken during my time in the crazy beautiful madhouse that is India, the motherland that cracks the heart open and pours in the light.  I photograph in order to discover meaning in the world, to explore light and shadow, to experience stillness in chaotic places.  In this work, I posit connections between seemingly unrelated or paradoxical subjects as a way to gain insight into the experiences and as a hope to see the world more clearly.

India is extraordinary, a land of contradictions.  The oils and incense and silks; the grime and rot and non-stop horn honking; the laughter and despair and devotion; the smell of fresh jasmine and spices and burning trash; the coconuts and kumkum and wandering cows; the beggars and holy men and housewives; the sattvic and the sacrilege; the sadhus and the scam artists; the chanting and yelling and hundreds of unheard whispered prayers.  If there is one thing to learn here, it is that the beauty and sorrow of life are woven so closely together that they become wholly indiscernible.  As the Indians are fond of saying, “This thing, that thing, all these things, same, same.”

The Saṃsāra photographs invite the viewer to engage the contradictions, to bring his or her own narrative to the work, allowing the tension between beauty and suffering, chaos and stillness, the sacred and profane, to play out within him or herself.  Is the dirty rag hanging from a crumbling wall any less sanctified than the ritual candles in a Tibetan monastery?  Is a sadhu dressed in his saffron robes any more beautiful than a billboard painted on the side of the road?  What is the difference between prayer flags waving in the wind and laundry hanging out to dry?  In India, the mundanity of life is elevated to the realm of the extraordinary.  Contradictions blur or disappear altogether.  It is all holy and irreverent, heartbreaking and beautiful, hilarious and tragic, stark raving mad and full of ecstasy!