...are analytic and sometimes spooky. My intentions are to converse with my inner self, heal my heart, touch memories, record daily life, combat isolation and boredom, find humor, and push myself into new directions, both emotionally and technically.

When everything appears similar in a diptych or triptych, the viewer is forced to focus on the gestures and shapes of the form of the body, which play on masculine and feminine forms. We project a great deal through details of clothing, such as formality/informality, authority/lack of control, openness/a, or modesty/flirtation.

Emotionally, I explore my gazes, gestures, postures, and expressions – as a clear-eyed participant in the photographic process, as a subject posing for a photographer, and as characters observed from the other side of the lens. I play with plausible deniability – do I have a twin or are both characters me?

Technically, I work with single images, composites, diptychs, and triptychs to present different interpretations of a single moment or the passage of time. Color combinations and props further emphasize and distinguish the relationships between the images, and create mood, atmosphere, and tension. When the images click, they communicate with each other, much like a chamber ensemble, making them more complex and deeper than solos or duets. I play piano-violin-cello trios and have a heightened awareness of this combination of forces.

Building a series of self-portraits allows me to visit the self and find humor in psychological, social, and emotional traumas. I delve into self-portraits from multiple points of view — pictures within pictures, photos superimposed onto collages, diptychs combining portraits and still lifes, and images where I talk to my “twin” self."

— Lisa Donneson