BLKMAIL
Since 1994, BLKMAIL has been in existence. I’m the Principal Photographer, using photography as a medium to document alternative images of Black people than that offered by the mainstream media. In 2016 BLKMAIL Photography will launch its first set of Black focused postcards and greeting cards.
I’ve been under the mentorship of Master photographer Jack Dales, and have become best known for my unique 35mm non-silver photography. This multi-disciplinary practice mines rare and historical photographic techniques by experimenting with hand-developed van dyke, cyanotype and gum biochromate-printing processes on BFK paper. My unique layered photographic glassworks are finished with delicate transparent stain glass construction (photographic ortho image suspended between plates of hand frosted and clear glass). This delicate production was an equally intricate part of the final presentation as the laborious creation of the image itself.
I interpret my personal observations of my subject’s body image, sexuality, and vulnerability through a post-colonial identity and health equity lens. My discursive and figural production on the visual representation for non-conforming sexual and gender identities emotionally interrupts the media’s narrow assumptions about Black men and women’s personhood.
As an accomplished photographer and artist, I have been working in a digital format for the past ten years, but instill the aesthetics of a historical photographic foundation to enhance the final production. My work is closely connected to my passion for image production of Black bodies as this was my deliberate opportunity to capture memories, validate existence and build self-esteem by allowing the images of my subjects to become a political instrument-rewriting representation.