Infinite Paradise

Beauty from Darkness I spent months in Kashmir, a war-torn, occupied land that was once known as the Valley of Paradise but is now split between the super powers of India and Pakistan. While living there I was taken to see the anonymous graves of Kashmiri men who were abducted by Indian security forces in their effort to crack down on terrorism and separatist violence. I photographed hundreds of small metal grave markers that have only hand painted numbers. I wanted to share these images, but I also wanted to create something of beauty from them to honor the many lives that they represented. 

Using my photographs of those metal markers I created these abstractions, enlarging, layering, and coloring  the images until they lost any semblance of their dark reality and morphed into meticulous detailed studies of color and pattern like the finely detailed Kashmiri paper maché seen throughout the valley. artists became the inspiration for these works.

Part of the Enemies Project

Kashmiri Paper Maché

A few images of paper maché artists and their work in Kashmir.