19th Annual Smithsonian Magazine Photo Contest Natural World
Wandering through the Coastal Shores

As an artist, I have always gravitated progressively towards my connection to my cultural and social environment and the natural landscape that surrounds me. There is beauty and decay in nature and correlate to my imagery and creativity. My inspiration comes from natural seascapes which are often interlaced with coded meaning to reference as metaphors using ideas of gender and sexuality. I am interested in capturing the process of beauty and the concept of the eventual dissolution of things. Basically, the impermanence of the inevitable, and the essence of ephemeral. My art is heavily infused with aquatic backgrounds loaded with symbolic references which are personal to me and essentially relevant to my art making process.

Photo Detail
Date Taken: 11.2021
Date Uploaded: 11.2021
Photo Location: Laguna Beach, California, United States of America
Copyright: © Fatima Franks