Gretchen Payne
[BFA] Photography
[Minor] Art History
In my series, The Fiction You Tell Yourself, I explore notions of my anxiety, fragility, and lack of transparency and how these feelings manifest photographically. Because my anxiety keeps me in a constant state of hyperawareness, I project an appearance of myself onto others to control how I am perceived. Calculated self-portraits represent the control I hold over my image and are contrasted by unconstrained photographs that reflect my internal self. By presenting an amorphous idea of myself, my photographs both conceal my authentic self and reveal my real self, where the two become one and the same.
Bio
Gretchen Payne is a Lincoln, Nebraska-based artist, and photographer. She is currently attending the University of Nebraska-Lincoln to receive a Bachelor of Fine Arts with a minor in art history. Her work is often an exploration of identity and its intersections with memory, the subconscious, as well as the topic of female identity and its representation in society.