'Evolution' - The Journey Continues...

A New Series of Work

One of the things I love most about creating a new body of work is that you rarely know where it will lead when you begin. The works that eventually become most important are often the ones that start with a simple question—one that quietly follows you for months, sometimes years, before revealing where it wants to go.

For me, Evolution began with a question:

How do we experience transformation while it is happening?

Change surrounds us. It shapes our lives, our relationships, our identities, and our understanding of the world. Yet it is often difficult to recognise in the moment. We tend to notice change only after it has occurred, looking back and tracing the distance between who we were and who we have become.

This body of work grew from a desire to explore those moments in between—the transitional spaces where something is shifting, emerging, or evolving, but has not yet fully arrived.

Long before I became a visual artist, I spent more than twelve years working as a professional scuba instructor. It was there that my relationship with photography first began.

My initial goal was simple. I wanted to share the extraordinary beauty of the underwater world with others.

Photographing beneath the surface was challenging, particularly in the days of film. Every frame mattered, equipment was limited, and one thing was always in short supply: light.

Looking back, it is interesting to realise that light has remained a constant thread throughout my practice.

What began as a technical challenge gradually became a creative fascination. I became interested not only in how light reveals form, but also in how it alters our perception of it. Light can define an object, but it can also dissolve it. It can make the familiar appear unfamiliar. It can transform what we see into something we experience.

That curiosity continues to shape my work today.

In Evolution, light, movement, and translucent forms are used to explore ideas of emergence, transformation, and becoming. The human figure appears and disappears, shifting between presence and absence, recognition and abstraction.

What interests me most are the spaces in between.

The moments where form is neither fully revealed nor entirely concealed.

The moments where change is occurring but remains unresolved.

As the series developed, it became clear that a single image could not fully express what I was trying to communicate. My practice has long explored the idea of photography as experience, and once again I found myself moving beyond the traditional photographic frame.

Installation elements began to emerge alongside the photographic works, creating a dialogue between image, space, and viewer. Rather than presenting a fixed narrative, the work invites a more personal encounter—one shaped by perception, movement, memory, and presence.

Ultimately, I am less interested in what an image depicts than in what it allows us to experience.

Evolution continues to unfold as the work develops. New questions continue to emerge, revealing directions I could not have anticipated when the project began.

Perhaps that is fitting.

After all, transformation is rarely a destination.

It is an ongoing process of becoming.

— Karen Mayo