This project is about my transition from a path of chaos to one of healing. For the past decade, I’ve been a blur of movement, running away from phantoms within. What once enriched my life fell away. I was in a space between worlds, a stranger to my own life. I took the route that curved back into me, threading the fractured parts of myself back into place, building the story one moment at a time. One family member at a time, collecting spirits together in a bottle jar, I tried to fit as many of them as I could, spending as much time with the people who held me close. I sank into these moments, like a warm mud bath. Intimacy is earned. It is fragile and can wilt. My garden of roses was in someone else’s palm yet I held the remaining petals close, clinging to the memory of its fleeting scent. I had to reconstruct my own patch of earth to bloom. Multiple exposures are layered, creating a patchwork of feelings. I wanted to create images that had an extravagance to them, vibrant landscapes, rich with significance.
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About the Artist
Justin Maxon (USA, b.1983) was born in a small town in the woods of northern California. He is
mainly interested in pursuing long-term projects that examine the complexities of human struggle. He has received numerous awards for his photography, from competitions like World Press Photo, UNICEF Images of the Year, POYi, and NPPA’s Best of Photojournalism. He won the Deeper Perspective Photographer of the Year at the 2008 Lucie Awards; the same year he was named one of PDN’s 30 Emerging Photographers to Watch.
He received the 2010 FotoVisura Photography Grant and the 2011 Cliff Edom “New America Award” from NPPA. He was selected to participate in World Press Photo’s 2010 Joop Swart Masterclass. Most recently, he received a grant from the Magnum Emergency Fund, along with the 2012 Alexia Foundation Professional Grant for World Peace. He has worked on feature stories for publications such as TIME, Rolling Stone, Newsweek, Mother Jones Magazine, Fader Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and NPR.