Artist Statement:

Square Dance marks an exploration of formal constraint as a means of discovery—a first engagement with the square format as both a compositional framework and a mode of seeing. The project emerged during a year of transition in Houston, Texas, where the vast, unfamiliar landscape prompted a recalibration of photographic approach. Moving through a space so geographically and visually expansive, I gravitated toward the discipline of the square, a format that imposes equilibrium while inviting precision.

Early in this process, I encountered the work of Gerry Johansson, whose rigorous formalism became a point of reference. The square’s symmetry, its ability to distill complex environments into contained geometries, became a guide. Alongside my close friend Daniel, I adopted an arbitrary methodology—dart-throwing as an act of navigation, allowing chance to dictate our photographic encounters. Our excursions unfolded across small towns and peripheral spaces, places often overlooked but rich in quiet narrative potential.

The images in Square Dance are less about Texas as a location and more about an approach—an exercise in looking, in responding to place through the structural logic of the frame. The square became both a limitation and an expanse, a way of ordering space while allowing for ambiguity. What remains is a record of movement, constraint as creative impulse, and the fluidity of observation shaped by the grid.