Statement - Marlo Marrero

I use my art to pursue questions of identity. Whether it is a community identity, or my own in question, identity issues have been the power behind my creative endeavors.

This body of work, titled My Latina Self / My Other Self, is a photographic series of trans-documentary, self-portraits. I shot these photographs in an effort to understand myself in the context of the Caribbean nation, the Dominican Republic. I decided to be in front of my camera, actually in the photograph versus behind my camera, so that I could be truly immersed in my new environment. As both photographer and subject, I made photographs of the authentic self and the constructed self in the cultural space of the Dominican Republic. Some images are blurred to signify creation, clarity of being, and emergence, both spatially and culturally. Other photographs are sharply focused, in an effort to solidify the concept of my physical immersion in this culture space. Both experiences are manipulated by camera techniques creating the illusion of time, either as slowed down or stopped.

I hope these photographs translate a personal experience as well as invite a universal familiarity. As a seeker of truth I will be forever enchanted with the idea that photography speaks the truth about a real moment in time.