Arethea

Finding Wonder speaks towards our desire to seek wonder, something I search for in the life that breathes around us. I locate this act within the realm of dreams, a world that is ungraspable in reality, yet deeply palpable within our sleep.
 

The first five images illustrate the experience of dreaming: falling asleep and leaving reality, entering an abstract dimension, and returning to our bed. In dreams, our conscious lived experiences intersect with unconscious imagination, and the camera's act of memorializing vignettes of time mirrors how upon waking, we often remember dreams as spliced-up moments. We struggle to capture the fleeting strands of time, the fragments of awe spilling like sand through the cracks between our fingers, disappearing from our world.

Yet, within the moments caught in our grasp, we find wonder both through those memories present, and also by imagining to fill the moments forgotten and absent. In the last three images, the figure fades into the background of the shadowy and blurred trees. However, her presence is nonetheless made stronger in her muted and disappearing appearance, pulsing through the veins of the trees, and existing under the light and life of nature.

 

This series embodies the hope I have to continue seeking wonder meekly in all corners of life. I leave one to wonder upon the scenes presented and not shown, finding meaning in both the seen and unseen. We enter a place where not only do we find wonder, but also where wonder finds us.