Megan Fuentes

Synergy

Synergy is the result of my meanderings, disconnections, and experiences with various subjects, events, and places over the past year. I am interested in linking the uncategorized things into a type of cosmic occurrence to explore interrelationships of subjects and time. My pictures depict not one particular thing, or any specific person, but a process of making pictures that is more so a dairy- a visual narrative of self-exploration. I’m equally interested in the personal interactions of the photographic gaze and how this creates a tension between visibility and invisibility. What are the value systems of pictures? How can a constellation of discontinuous experiences become a synergy?

To photograph in a discreet and handheld way allows me to become part of the moment quickly, rather than staging a moment. Two artists have inspired my methodologies of process and installation. Nan Goldin’s use of camera depicts an intimate portrayal of her world, much like a diary. This diaristic style served a huge impact on her life, making the viewer feel part of her world. Synergy aims to create a similar type of intimacy, but additionally creates connections of happenings through formal installation strategies of scale and arrangement. Wolfgang Tillmans’ work was also aspirational in its ability to activate the viewer’s perception using these installation techniques as well as exploring how we think about photographic categories. Meaning, he aligned imagery together that often had very different stylistic approaches. He often repeated the same picture more than once in the same exhibition, but altered the scale playing with perception and meaning. His merger of various photographic subjects and aesthetics taught me to reconsider each picture as an experience and that can be restructured again and again.