The Detained

"The Detained was inspired by a photo of CECOT prison that was published by the El Salvador government. On a visual level, the image was striking, even beautiful; it was only up close that it resolved into the scene of horror that it is.
There is a tension between the visual abstraction that serves to artwash the photo, and the abstraction that we sometimes use to insulate ourselves emotionally from the reality of terrible things happening to people we don’t know in faraway places.
In my treatment of the image, the people remain nameless and faceless, abstracted to the point that they are hard to recognize as people. This is not to provide a comfortable distance between us and their plight - rather, it is an invitation to look longer and think harder about what we are seeing.I build complication into my printmaking projects not to make things more difficult than they need to be, but as a means of deepening engagement with the subjects and issues I approach. Abstractions can gradually come into focus as other people's lived experience, and extra layers and processes can express the sounds and energy of a changing urban neighborhood. The extra moments needed to consider the 'what' create space for a more careful consideration of the 'why'."