Arrayah Loynd on Processing Pain Through Image-Making

The intersection of personal and universal issues is the space in which conceptual photographer Arrayah Loynd creates her art. Is not a simple task to connect through personal experience with a vast audience. But Arrayah succeeds in making work that resonates with the viewer at a deep level.

The urge to create art is sometimes the only way to give form to our thoughts and digest life challenges. Through this impactful and honest work of Arrayah Loynd, not only do we confront our own experiences and connect with the emotions portrayed, we also come to understand a broader message.

Hi Arrayah, welcome to the Lomography Magazine. For many photographers, exposing their personal lives is very difficult, while you have made your story an integral part of your projects, for example in Come and Find Me where you talk about memory, trauma, ADHD. How do you access each project and what is your working process like?

I only began centering myself within my work in 2020. I had been given some old family photographs after my grandmothers passing and it seemed to trigger a need within me to try and understand myself and my past. It was a profound time of healing for me, using my art to process trauma in a way I had never done before.

I am a very private person and do not like being in front of the camera in any way and I never intended it to be seen. I have produced work before that was personal to me but I was never centered in the storytelling. It was more universal in its expression and so I could feel comfortable in putting it out there as I was very much removed and detached from the images I was producing. It was still cathartic but not as deeply as creating Come and Find Me was. It was also during this time that I received my diagnosis for ADHD and Autism. It was like I had to find myself again through a new lens and the accumulated grief was quite profound.

Creating this body of work was what ultimately got me through. I don’t plan any of my series. I often have a burning need to express something that I am unable to process within my mind and art seems to be the only way I can do this. I can often overthink things but creatively I am able to be completely free and in the moment, accessing a pat of me that needs to be heard and understood. I work prolifically and manically - often at least several hours a day.

Not everything I produce is worthy of publishing but it still serves a purpose for me and helps me to find my place in a world that I find completely overwhelming. I have an archive of images that I have taken over the years that I then draw from to create new work. It is kind of like putting together a jigsaw puzzle, finding the right pieces that fit together aesthetically and emotionally for whatever I need to process.

You have projects that touch on very important current social issues centered around female autonomy like in Veneer Difficult, and MORE OR LESS (IN)COMPLETE. Would you say that activism is part of your art?

I am highly sensitive and have a very strong sense of justice. My work focuses on things that I feel strongly about but that also reflects my own life experiences in some way. I suppose it allows me to address trauma and PTSD related to gendered violence but in a way that is universal and able to be understood by others.

I don’t consciously use activism as part of my art, I just think that issues such as gendered violence are so prolific that it is personal and universal at the same time. I am profoundly grateful that my art is able to bring these subjects to light and initiate conversations around issues that are too often hidden.

In Pain Always Finds a Surface, the title suggests a duality between the physical perception of pain and pain finding an exit at the surface. What is the role of photography in the experience of pain for you?

Pain has been a constant part of my life and there have been only a few rare moments where I have felt well. It can be debilitating mentally and physically. Pain Always Finds the Surface was one of those moments where I was deeply distressed after another traumatic hospital visit. I started creating it whilst still affected by the medication I had been given and experiencing a dissociated state. I was desperately trying to cling onto reality and unable to process what was happening within me.

Picking up the camera was instinctive and I used it as a way to help bring me back into my body. I have been unable to leave the house much since then as I fell into a deep depression and traumatic response. What got me through was my art, processing the pain through my image-making.

It was during this time that I connected with another photographer, Lisa Murray, who works in a very similar way to me artistically. She seems to mirror my mind and life experiences and we work together every day in friendship and our creative practice.

Being able to share my life with her in this way has been profoundly healing and I don’t know how we both managed before. Having someone that can be honest with you and encourage you in moments of doubt has allowed me to reach even higher that I ever could alone.

Is photography somehow a form of therapy for you? Is there an element of catharsis in each project?

Being creative is therapy. I experience extreme sensory overload and emotional dis-regulation when I am overwhelmed with emotion or pain. It is all consuming and my brain dissociates as a protective mechanism. Creating art seems to be the only way I can access and process what is happening for me internally. It is as essential to me as breathing.

Is there one specific photographic technique that best suits your work? How do the technical and visual aesthetics for each project develop?

My work is very experimental. I taught photography in higher education for 10 years but always felt limited by the rules in regards to how you process an image. I think having a
vast amount of skills in PS has allowed me to understand how to break the rules and push the boundaries to better reflect what is in my mind.

I have developed some very unusual techniques in masking and blending of images that is always evolving and each new project springboards from the previous one in refining those techniques. I have a great love of color which I use in nearly all of my work - rich, saturated and often at odds with the subject matter. It is how I see the world, full of exquisite detail. I love creating beauty from pain and it is what keeps me going.

You can see more of Arrayah Loynd's work on Instagram and her website.

written by eparrino on 2024-01-22 #culture #news #australia #conceptual-photographer #conceptual-art #lensculture-art-photography-awards