Cristal Tappan
The completion of the series, Cowardice, showcases my insecurities and forced me to reconcile them through the use of photography. Prior to completing this series, I had an inability to confront the issues in my life that I felt haunted by and was more comfortable running away from them as illustrated in Impending Consequences. Throughout Cowardice, I simplified each of my fears and anxieties into their most basic forms by stripping away and processing the convoluted emotions and layers associated with these issues. Discovering the deepest roots of these problems was part of the process for this work and photographing them helped to give me understanding and a sense of closure.
By exposing myself in Cowardice, the viewer is provoked to self-reflect on their past experiences and encourages them to bring their own experiences to the forefront of their consciousness. Cowardice is a self- portrait quadriptych of digital photographs with each panel of my closet placed with a distorted alignment and spacing to illustrate that these anxieties have been dramatized over time. When printed large, the scale of the panels is designed to overwhelm the viewer in the same way that unearthing these insecurities has affected me.
Up until the creation of Cowardice, I wasn't being true to myself and these fears and anxieties prevented me from creating positive experiences. I hope to inspire the viewer to set aside some time for self-reflection and attempt to untangle their own insecurities.