I Don't Love Joburg

'I Don't love Joburg' is a truncated text and the title of a selection of pictures that were made in the city of Johannesburg, which is commonly abbreviated to Joburg.  The pictures were made during summer 2021 through autumn 2022.  
I used photographic praxis to initiate meditative states wherein wounds were explored: I was interested in developing and integrating personal heuristic healing methods by using photography to pay strong attention to natural light and colour. Subject matter was intended to be incidental to general exploration. I was also drawn to my past experiences with art-making and symbolism by conjuring past-selves to explore grief with respect to time, aging and growing older, which provided an increasing clarity that would diffuse my confusion and deconstruct my propensity for metonymy.
I was interested in how I began to feel about my identity and identity-dynamism, transience, seasons, and change. I found peace in connecting with nature and the natural world. I was later driven by experimentation and deriving knowledge from my experiences by attempting to clarify phenomenological-physiological effects of how the qualities of both light and weather affected my perception of beauty and peace, and how these perceptions might be interpreted by the principles of neuro-aesthetics while exploiting my isolation and loneliness to seek constructive methods of interacting with the world. 

'You pranced about with space enough to brandish your new heart, as though you didn't know me. And I've been wandering the city looking for signs of your love in strange places, but I don't love Joburg; I love you.'