The Forest's Touch

Here in this digital photograph, I challenge the boundaries between the human body and the natural world. Green hair against clothing and a deep purple leaf background forms a dreamy, expanded cosmos in which traditionally established interaction between human beings and nature is redefined. The bush's 'hands,' as if holding hairstyling devices to reveal a common bond between human and nature—one in which nature is not merely a static backdrop, but rather an agent of our presentation of self. The subject, photographed in rear, can be manipulated to appear like anyone via whom audience members can perhaps engage in their own relation to nature and self-presentation. I've made a case of attachment between species and challenged care, dependence, and how we go about making the artificial divide we make between the natural and the constructed as we look for beauty.