Visual Studies / 002

Signs, Gaze & Simulation

Melbourne and New York City

2022–2024

Psychic City

The eye as a conduit between perception and the city.

Midtown, New York City.

Psychic City follows eyes across bodies, signs, patches, murals and spiritual symbols. Repetition turns the eye from an organ into a charged urban motif.

Pierre and Josh in Washington Square Park, New York City.

Each appearance carries a different relation to vision. Some eyes look back; others promise surveillance, protection, intuition or access to what remains hidden. The photographs do not collapse these meanings into one symbol. They ask why the eye so readily gathers ideas about consciousness and power.

Midtown, New York City.

The series maps the distance between biological sight, the social exchange of the gaze and the desire to perceive beyond surfaces. In the city, looking is never one-directional. To see is also to enter a field in which one may be seen.

Midtown, New York City.
Midtown, New York City.
Midtown, New York City.
Times Square, New York City.
  • The Picture Looks Back

    The Picture Looks Back

    Every subject returns the camera’s gaze, turning scrutiny back on the viewer and questioning how we judge vulnerability, privacy, dignity and agency.

  • Phnom Penh: Within the Wats
    ,

    Phnom Penh: Within the Wats

    Returning to Phnom Penh’s monasteries years after living in the city, I photographed the daily rhythms and relationships that came into focus through repeated visits.

  • The Subject at Hand

    The Subject at Hand

    A photographic study of hands that emerge from the background of street scenes and become the subject through repetition, attention and sequencing.

  • Synchronicity

    Synchronicity

    Visual elements converging to reveal the ordered chaos of city life.

  • Nailshop

    Nailshop

    Fingernails as bodily edges where grooming, self-fashioning and social judgment meet.

  • A Lungful of Air

    A Lungful of Air

    How substances shape the atmosphere of the city and the psyche of its inhabitants