20/20 VISION PHOTOBOOK

My third Photobook, in full colour

20/20 vision denotes perfectly clear, sharp vision, and in a departure from my usual romantic, dreamy black and white aesthetic, my third photobook is a collection of hyper-real colour works exploring the relationship of the ‘ideal’ and the ‘real’.

When I conceived of the idea and title in 2019, I had no idea that the year 2020 would turn out to be such a literal disruption of our dreams and plans by the harsh reality of droughts, raging bushfires, flash floods, the COVID-19 pandemic, forced isolation, the Black Lives Matter movement, widespread conspiracy theories and increasingly divisive politics. This year of shocks has pitted our ideals against the very real consequences of environmental degradation, social justice movements, and the post-truth era. How can we make sense of it all? How can we clarify our vision for the future in times of such uncertainty and cynicism?

This sequence of images begins with a more idyllic and positive outlook, symbolising our collective plans and hopeful visions for the future. But the cracks begin to appear via hints of degradation on physical and moral levels. The tension between “the good life” of beauty, style and elegance and the people and environments that underwrite that ideal, is brought into increasingly sharp relief as the pages unfold. We are like children who must necessarily suffer our fantasies being shattered by growing up into adulthood, where the ideal and the real exist in uneasy compromise and there are no black and white answers.