The Self-Portrait Series began during my time at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in the late 1990s, when I first started exploring portraiture as a way of looking both inward and outward—of understanding how we see ourselves and how we’re seen. Long before the rise of the selfie, I was using the camera to stage and examine identity.
In this ongoing project, I wear a traditional German Dirndl and photograph myself in places around the world—Japan, Morocco, Greece, and beyond. The red dress becomes a constant within shifting cultural landscapes. For me, it represents both strength and vulnerability, and carries layered associations: femininity, protection, and the complexities of national identity.
My work was deeply informed by artists like Cindy Sherman, whose use of the self as subject opened up critical conversations around identity, gender, and performance. But unlike Sherman, who often inhabits fictional personas, I wanted to remain grounded in my own authentic history. Rather than becoming someone else, I am choosing to be fully myself—placing my body, my heritage, and my questions in direct relation to the world around me.
By positioning myself in these environments—sometimes at UNESCO World Heritage Sites, sometimes in busy urban streets—I’m not simply inserting myself into a scene. I’m asking questions. What does it mean to appear as a German woman in Japan, for example? What histories are carried in the body, in clothing, in gesture?
These images are carefully composed but not staged in the traditional sense. They’re grounded in observation and curiosity. Each photograph becomes a moment of exchange—a way to consider the relationship between the self and place, between what is familiar and what is foreign.
Through this work, I’m interested in cultural contrast, yes—but also in connection. I see these portraits as an ongoing dialogue about where we come from, how we move through the world.
Okunoin Cemetery, Koyasun Japan, 2019