“The New Machinery,” my series of photo constructions, combines intimate images of machine hardware into constructions that are both ominous and seductive. 

I use the camera to reveal hidden properties in humble discarded objects—glass, machine parts, plastic toys, marks on paper, whose imperfections announce their well-handled physicality. Once these photo sessions are complete, I consider myself only midway through the process, with stacks of these prints as my construction materials—each one a unique abstract trace of the original objects.

For me, the next step is the work’s greatest pleasure—piecing together the work prints using pushpins on board. Gradually, as I overlap layers of prints, the composition builds and transforms into something active and sculptural, with images alternating between flatness and depth. 

From this hand-built, tacked-together structure of seemingly disparate parts, I edit and adjust the elements into a final digital translation that provokes some to clash and others to melt together, complicating the space in which the construction resides. The final photograph resists a resolved, stable conclusion. It conflates 2D and 3D space, creating a tense conversation between an apparent logic and the uncertainty of its intentions.