The artwork titled A Natural Reality is a series of photographs that investigates a new relationship between nature and man as well as the distance between physical human limits and the fathomless depths that entail our imaginations. These photographs open thought about the world and question human capabilities. A Natural Reality looks at the unknown. It provokes the audience to look closely and make sure that they know what it is that they are seeing. I made images that show humans intertwined with nature in an impossible way. It is unnatural for the human body to grow from trees, or to stem out flowers.

The work expands on an earlier series of images that I made, titled “Flora and the Body”, in which humans interact with bark and flowers. In A Natural Reality I explore a deeper interaction of humans becoming one with foliage. I drew inspiration from surrealist paintings as well as Brooke Shaden, a modern day photographer who works with compositing. I was also influenced by nymphs, which in Greek Mythology inhabited rivers and woods. My process was to research nymphs and art that implements humans in natural settings, such as the Hylas by John William Waterhouse, and the work of Jerry Uelsmann and Teun Hocks. This art is a push to another level of reality. Through the use of the human figure with nature, this series of visual images alludes to and is inspired by mythology.