Shane Deruise (The Artist as Words.)

I am an artist. I am afflicted.

Somewhere along my strands of DNA lies a particular combination of chemicals that make this so: I can no sooner change it than I could change my height or eye color or the shape of my face or the sound of my voice. It is hardwired in my genes. It is who I am, it is who I will always be.

I look at the world through the eyes of an artist. It's not better, it's not worse; it's just different. I am different. I am an artist and I am not the norm. Within my photography I choose to find moments, things that make us the people we are. Things that happen that are so large, or so small... they change the way we are, who we are, or what we think... forever. I celebrate instance, emotion, and the human form in my art.

Personally I strive to be open-minded, I seek out what is shocking and against the grain. I observe, I immerse myself, I learn and I grow. What was shocking now becomes accepted and understood.

I am proud of my work and I don't hide it away. This is what I do, this is who I am.

We are flesh and blood, bones and cartilage, sinew and muscle. We live, we breathe, we sweat and cry, we hope and dream, and hurt. As unique as each individual personality might be it all boils down to just how similar we all are on the basic level.

[reminisce]

I used to take photographs about my environment, objects, myself, and friends. Those images never felt close to me, though, there is a strange thing about being shunned, and misunderstood... never feeling at home. After searching for many years, and losing a lot of what I lived for, I realized what I want my work to encompass. Now I take pictures of gender, the human condition, and trauma.

The human condition is growth and decay. I am searching out beauty within the grotesque. We are not all the same, people's physicality has inspired me to confront the everyday sense of normalcy and decency. If intimacy wasn't such a confining word... for me it may be represented as substance; emotional, sexual, and hideous.

I have come to the understanding that in presenting my emotions to the world, that we are all comprised of the same elements; love, sex, hatred, death, and God. I strive within the presentation of my photographs, that at last, I can humanize hurt, sex, and span the void between the unspeakable and the commonplace. Thus, dismantling a persons preconceived notions about what is “normal" sexuality and physical beauty.

I am becoming more interested in wound bruises, scars, and bodily fluids… the unconventional form. The body as a site of trauma. I want to seek out morgues, and insane asylums, the resulting photographs of which will be an elegant, haunting, and beautiful representation. A hideous beauty that is as compelling as it is taboo.

I am an artist.
I just want to be heard.
I will keep trying.

Keepsake Photography & Graphic Design - -[link]
Keepsake @ ModelMayhem - -[link]
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