Keisha Scarville

Statement

Photography is a mode through which I satisfy my desire to deconstruct reality and connect to my past. I engage in a process of visual excavation, exploring both landscapes and the body to address questions of belonging in the midst of negation. My work speaks to how these devices activate the imagination, inscribe our identity, and trigger what is hidden in memory. The images I create serve as visual meditations on loss, belonging, and obscurity.

In my recent body of work, I explore the experience of absence and the camera's role in visualizing that which cannot be seen but felt. I explore the paradox of abundance within absence and the phenomenology of space. I present my body cloaked in my mother’s clothes, which act as a residual surrogate skin. In the series, I am looking at ways I can facilitate and construct a visual place where I can conjure her presence while using my body as a medium.