Maria Sprowls Cervantes - I Do

Maria Sprowls Cervantes

I’m a visual artist and photographer interested in the photographic medium as a documenting instrument for performance and narrative work. My work finds its raison d’etre in human relations and chance encounters, focusing mainly in the desire to connect with a place, a person, or a moment. I photograph with the intention of committing myself to the image making process just as some people decide to commit to one another. Photography allows me to create proofs and evidence of these temporary encounters, by elevating them into a tableau or image that transcends time and reality. With a fifty-dollar wedding dress, a camera, a loaded question and a hand to be held, I intend to create a memento for the men that agree to marry me and collaborate in the image making process. The decontextualization of the gown has given to it a working uniform quality. I inhabit it with a purpose that is it not precisely its original one. My methodology of using costumes outside of context remains in this piece. The dress fulfills its mission and simultaneously it fails to do so. What interests me is the disjunctive: the not belonging to these men or to the dress.