Eden Had No Need of Fairy Tales

EDEN HAD NO NEED OF FAIRY TALES Utilizing a synergetic relationship between text and image, each photogravure explores ironic alternative chapters of familiar narratives. Stories that over time came to be known as fairy tales were complex narratives that reflected the conflict and challenges of life inherent in the pre-modern era. These stories entertained, instructed, and otherwise created a structure around which listeners could organize and interpret a chaotic and overwhelming world. These stories addressed the psychological preoccupation with the predominant experiences of life—birth, death, sexuality, hunger, abandonment, and violence, to name a few. For this project I returned to imaginative storytelling. These images respond to the need to bring order and significance to an anxious world. Re-envisioned in contemporary settings, my protagonists grapple with the loss of innocence, search for identity, attempt to shape their destinies, and encounter the unexpected. Similar to their mortal counterparts, my heroes and heroines must work their way through perplexing conditions, disappointment, and compromise to uncover sublime moments of liberation, autonomy, and redemption. The photogravures’ strengths are in their ability to create empathy for hero in his struggles. The work acknowledges the complexity of contemporary life, the longing for power to transcend conflict, and the need for courage and ingenuity to complete the mortal journey. The images for this project are created as limited edition photogravure prints.