I believe to be true that my work has always been informed by a sense, and even presence, though sometimes unseen in frame, of nature and its inherent vibrancy. I was born and raised in the Caribbean, therefore my photos often offer a varied color palette directly inspired by the array of colors, shapes, patterns, and textures that surrounds me at all times. However, it is important for me, and simultaneously challenging, to find ways to bypass the stereotypical beauties of the Caribbean, usually depicted in pamphlets, brochures, articles, and magazines as the Vacation Get-Away aesthetic. Such aesthetic is of no interest to me.
In my experience, the Caribbean is as lush as it is dilapidated, as pure as it is colonized. So my photographic interest is more aligned towards the truth— investigating the dead space, the abandoned buildings, the faulty infrastructure, the odd myriad of schematic and architectural influences fashioned together throughout time and evolving sovereignty. But my inclination towards cinema, as a technically trained writer in Television and Film, serves as impetus to explore and coalesce a revitalization of colors and light, as well as a gnawing sense of narrative, within that very dilapidation or dead space.
Growing up and living most of my life in this verdant but seemingly diminishing land, my imagination has always run rampant— inspired by animation, the infinity of a horizon that unites ocean and sky, colorful accents, and a dearth of answers to much larger questions of such stark, widespread exploitation of a unique landscape. I fear more and more that my photography is merely my attempt to preserve the memory of a place that used to be so much more beautiful. As I grow older, the politics of the islands grow perpetually more complex; a dual assault of rising sea levels and a crushing usurpation of residents and locals from predatory means of outside development. As I continue to reckon with the fleeting sensation of a Caribbean that I grew up with versus the harsher realities of island life, I aspire to imbue notions of isolation, systemic neglect, climate change as well as serenity into my work, documenting the transient nature of a memory, sifting through internal fountains of escapism, and leveraging an evergreen sense of gratitude towards my origins of rural and minute island life. In my nascent time of becoming, being from a 13 by 32 square-mile island regularly felt daunting, as I looked towards the outside world, often through a TV screen, to stabilize my sense of self amidst a world as big as the universe – I have since come to the realization that my art aims to keep my islands afloat, so that they may see the rest of the world with me.
