Exploring the Journey of Creating Evolution

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. Evolution started with a simple question that stayed with me for months:

How do we visually represent change?

Change is something we all experience, yet it can be difficult to describe. It unfolds slowly, often unnoticed until we look back and realise how far we've travelled. As I began developing this new series, I found myself reflecting not only on transformation within the work itself, but also on the changes that have shaped my own creative journey.

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. At the time, my goal was simple: I wanted to share the extraordinary beauty of the underwater world with others.

Underwater photography was challenging, particularly in the days of film. Equipment was limited, every frame mattered, and one thing was always in short supply—light.

Looking back, it's interesting to realise that light has remained a constant thread throughout my practice. What began as a technical challenge eventually became a creative fascination. I became interested not only in how light reveals form, but also in how it transforms it.

Today, that exploration continues to inform my work.

In Evolution, I find myself returning to those same questions through different means. Using light, movement, and translucent forms, I explore ideas of transformation, emergence, and becoming. The work examines the spaces between one state and another—the moments of transition where change is occurring but has not yet fully arrived.

As the series developed, I realised 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 images, creating a dialogue between the work, the viewer, and the space itself.

What interests me most is not simply what we see, but what we experience.

Evolution is still unfolding. Like many creative projects, it continues to surprise me, revealing new questions and possibilities as it develops. In many ways, that feels fitting. After all, change is rarely a destination. It is a process.

And perhaps that is what this work is really about.

Not arrival.

But becoming.

— Karen