When all is said and done, how does one create art that truly matters?

Art matters because it enables us to make sense of a chaotic, often overwhelming world. It provides structure to the abstract, and clarity to the obscure. Whether through documentary or fine art photography, I’ve always believed that visual imagery offers a unique capacity to foster shared understanding. It opens space for difficult conversations, challenges perceptions, and allows us to see people, ideas, or issues from entirely new angles.

The idea of reflexive art—art that turns inward, that examines the self as both subject and lens—is a concept I find deeply compelling. In their book Art & Fear, David Bayles and Ted Orland write:

“You make good work by making lots of work that isn’t very good, and gradually weeding out the parts that aren’t yours… It’s the most direct route to learning about your own vision.”

This philosophy resonates with my own creative process. Meaningful work emerges not from a single act of inspiration, but through repetition, vulnerability, and an ongoing dialogue with failure and discovery.

T.S. Eliot’s reference to “broken images” evokes a powerful sense of fragmentation, decay, and loss—conditions that mirror much of modern existence. For me, 21st-century life feels increasingly disordered and disjointed, shaped by uncertainty and emotional noise. This state of disarray forms the conceptual core of many of my photographic portfolios.

The images in the series titled Broken are intentionally enigmatic—symbolic and emotionally fractured. They are visual reflections of internal states: uncertainty, isolation, silence, and longing. Eliot’s words resonate again:

“Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion.”

These photographs are not about resolution. They are about holding space for ambiguity, and finding a certain beauty within the fragments. In the brokenness, there is honesty. And in that honesty, perhaps, a path to deeper understanding.