Photography, as a way of recording, is often high-definition and highly descriptive. Therefore, photography has a close relationship with visual perception. In my soft and abstract photographic images, the particularity of time and place is deliberately diluted, and the traditional objects in the photographic images are eliminated to challenge the viewer to locate themselves in relation to the photographs. The ambiguity of the photograph stimulates the viewer's self-consciousness to the greatest extent, while also spurring profound examination of the particular ways one expects photographs to affect them.

Brief Artist Statement by Shellita Tow as part of a 2021 MFA Exhibition, entitled "Fragmenting Time” in the Cora Stafford Gallery on the campus of the University of North Texas on April 15-20, 2021.

This work is a developing portrait of women workers who are involved in labor rights advocacy within the context of the maquiladora (assemblage factory) industry in Mexico. I have traveled to do research in Mexico by making photographs and through collecting recorded testimonies from the women workers I come to meet through an organization called the Comité Fronterizo de Obreras. The resulting artwork I make includes photographs, handmade books, video, sculpture and works on paper. Ultimately, my translation of the empowerment and stories of these women workers into works of art are at the center of my practice.

With this work, I investigate the mental and physical toll of the past and the dissonance that often occurs as we age through the use of experimental cameraless techniques. By placing photographic materials directly against my skin during performative acts of self-care, I document my body as I reflect on the damage it suffered as a result of my childhood as a competitive gymnast, which is being exacerbated by the effects of age and time. The resulting photographs are a poetic self-reflection on my physical form that embodies my struggle to understand and accept my deteriorating body.

The Agency of Water is an exhibition that explores the agency of water. I perceive water as a moving, living organism. Evidence of water’s agency can be seen in carved out underground caves, natural levees created by sediment depositions, and wind-driven flow. Through the lens of Post-Humanism and a decentered Anthropocene, I intend to explore the interconnected relationships between water, wind, and soil. Recognizing the agential capacities of these elements as a collaborator in my work decentralizes humans’ sovereignty as a singular actor in a world wherein nature shapes itself alongside human existence. This body of work reflects conversations between nature, myself, and the environment.

Artist's Statement from the MFA Exhibition: "Enshrouded ecological ubiquities unveil persistent, muted presences existing in neglected spaces as ghostly survivors of anthropogenic impositions upon land. Cobwebs and their remnants of animals hide secret conspiracies of resurrection, conjured speciations, and resilience amid destruction: a space emblematic of Anthropocenic and girlhood survival that further serves as a locus for an intimate intercross yielding a resuscitation and becoming-with animals. Symbiotic collaborations tangle an exchange of a short life able to survive deeper into the Anthropocene with a longer life that cannot survive it, birthing an evolution and conversion into a new hereafter species."

Ōrāculumis a collection of photographic sculptures, suspended woven forms and photographic prints shown as an exhibition. Working with a Holga camera as my companion, I capture the past, present, and future possibilities of self. Pushing the use of motion blur and low lighting, dreamy environments are conjured with a heavy focus on the figure. Using the camera’s ability to create a connection between my internal world of emotion and my physical reality, representations of past and future possibilities are fabricated. Held present by woven structures, versions of myself are created and repaired, as I explore and accept my unresolved identity as a neurodivergent person. Oraculum offers viewers the opportunity to reflect on their past memories, current self and utilize them to craft a desired future.