SElf-Portrait Series
 

Photo series. 2018.

Self-Portrait I (Palm and Mars)
Digital print, 8" x 30", 2018.
(Right image of Kasei Valles and Sacra Fossae on Mars courtesy of  ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum), CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO)

While researching Mars, I was struck by the similarities between its surface and the landscape of my own palm. The patterns recalled the Fibonacci Sequence and Golden Ratio, which are prevalent across all levels of physical existence. In comparing the two, Mars began to seem less foreign than I previously perceived it to be, as though the celestial may not be entirely separate from us. Simultaneously, I realized how unfamiliar I was with my own surface, as though my own palm could be just as undiscovered as the surface of Mars.

Having long been a source of speculation, Mars has become a symbol both of humanity’s future and its past. Some theorize that we may have once inhabited Mars, or that we are descended from Martian life that contaminated our planet. It is even more often assumed to be the next planet that humanity
will colonize. The potential role of Mars in our future, and the mystical aura surrounding the planet’s past is alluded to in Self-Portrait I through the reference of palmistry. The palm is read and reveals our future on Mars. Though the work may be interpreted as having an element of science fiction, sci-fi is often a precursor to science fact. At the time of writing this, SpaceX successfully launched a Tesla Roadster towards Mars, potentially ushering in a new age of space exploration and bringing closer the possibility of visiting the red planet.

Self-Portrait II (Fingernail and Nebula)
Digital print, 8" x 24", 2018.
(Right image credit: Focal Pointe Observatory/B.Franke, NASA/CXC/MSFC/D.Swartz et al, DSS, SARA)

In the second print of the series, I ‘zoomed in’ on the hand, while ‘zooming out’ of the planet, to see if I would find similar relationships between the astronomical and the microscopic, between the bodily and the celestial. The image on the left presents a clipping of my fingernail photographed at 200 times magnification by an electron microscope, while the image on the right depicts the remnants of a supernova 5,000 light years from Earth called IC 443, or the Jellyfish Nebula. This sliver of bodily residue, upon magnification, was as mesmerizing as the remnants of this supernova 5000 light years from Earth. The more closely I zoomed in on the body, the more immeasurable, unknowable, and expansive it was revealed to be, until it began to take on some of the otherworldliness that we normally associate with the cosmic, and not with ourselves.