Statement

When I was just five years old I was the victim of a brutal divorce from my parents. During their intense fighting that happened almost nightly, I would often sit in the corner quietly daydreaming and drawing, imagining that I was in my own world. A universe just for me, full of playfulness and dark mystery.

Years later as an adult I still hold onto this childhood fantasy. Only now I use photography to place my imaginary characters in their proper settings. At first it became a form of rebellion, later growing into something much more serious. I began taking every opportunity to escape and experience what I considered the opposite of my ordinary middle-class domesticity.

My photographs are a broad exploration of real and imagined journeys that often entail not only a physical displacement, but also a psychological and emotional passage. The emotional tension and hidden beauty that can be found among individuals in exile. The characters in my story are lost souls who seek out ever lasting love. They are fictions in my photographs and yet they are real, out in the world performing in their own dramatic masterpiece. These photographs build upon their memories and mine. A memory can affect our waking life forever like a nightmare. They are our salvation. This work is an attempt to approach the shadows that cast our memories out into the living world. It is recognition of these moments, these memories, that often keep us from becoming self-destructive in the face of oblivion.

I carouse alleyways searching for human dramas and bittersweet ironies. The choices made are still driven by the desire to challenge my own fears, but now it is ultimate freedom. And by keeping a photographic diary of this landscape that spans fascination, desire and loss, I am home again -- forced to reconcile my own demons and defy the mundanes of ordinary society.

By Victor Cobo