What propels my work is a fascination with the everyday workings of human nature. I am drawn to situations that reveal the interplay between the alternately humorous and dark corners of human experience, the uncertain moments when the logical and the inexplicable tease each other or the borders between fact and fiction blur. I am interested in how personal and social perspectives color our perceptions and imprint the psychological quirks that lurk within our minds. My work investigates the challenges we face in our relationships to one another, our efforts to negotiate with nature through science and technology, the ways in which we construct our individual realities, and our attempts set up systems to navigate life in this world.

My mixed media constructions are often built around photographic imagery and take on a wide variety of formats, often sculptural. I freely use any type of photographic process that serves my purpose for each piece, including my own traditional black and white photographs, tintypes, daguerreotypes, alternative processes, or digital images, as well as found photographs and negatives, even x-rays. I frequently alter or physically manipulate the images through painting, peeling, cutting, embedding in wax, etc. My use of other materials (both cast-off and new) is even more diverse, including wood, metal, lenses, paper, beeswax, and a vast array of objects. The images are integrated into some combination of these materials, a process that culminates in the formulation of singular, hybrid image-objects. -Beverly Rayner