Jean Albus Photography

Artist’s Statement:

The landscape and sky, the activity of the elements and the creatures that abide here is the beauty that inspires me. Living in the unceasing beauty of sky, land, wind, animals and reptiles brings home to me the realization that everything I see or hear is simply a reflection of myself.

The dresses became a means to express my feelings about that, and also a means to express thoughts about the cycles of time, my emotions and my own history. The dresses are really just surrogates for my self. Bringing the female figure into my photography expresses more in a physical sense my experience of contact with my surroundings and the things I love about it--the light, the wind, the dry heat, the cracked earth and blistering cold, even the dead things I come across.

For me it’s always about coming to terms with time--transition, death, rebirth, and love. All my photographs represent real experiences I’ve had and continue to have, not just with the landscape, but with people. There is no separation. Since I’ve come to connect what I see in the physical realm of nature with what I experience spiritually or in relationships, things I ponder or emotions I experience, it all becomes part of work. I’m sure my experiences are universal, that we’re all connected on many levels with what exists around us. There are many landscapes inside us and out. My art is an attempt to express that.