Portfolio
Hi! I’m Lincoln, and here is a little background on my senior portfolio. This is an exploration of the theme “Frustration and Curiosity: Modern Technology and the Overconsumption of Media.” Through photography, digital art, painting, and mixed media, I examine how constant digital engagement affects attention, authenticity, and human connection. Each piece reflects a different aspect of this relationship—from the loneliness of screenlight to the loss of meaning through endless replication—while also imagining possibilities for awareness, escape, and reconnection beyond the digital world.
CAPTCHA
Pinhole, film, digital image, edited digital images, AI-generated image
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This project uses the language of CAPTCHAs, digital tests that distinguish human from machine, to explore what it means to be “real” in a world increasingly shaped by technology. By photographing the same subject across vastly different media – pinhole, film, digital, edited digital, and AI generated – I trace a visual journey from simplicity and authenticity to digital reproduction and generation. This progression mirrors how media evolution has led us to a point where we no longer know if images are truly real. Just as CAPTCHAs frustrate users while verifying identity, the work emphasizes the tension of navigating multiple realities and questions which version can be trusted. The piece emphasizes how the creation of images using evolved digital technologies mimics the authentic, and makes us question, “is this real?”
Artist Statement:
Fading LIght
Original digital photographs, professionally printed on photo paper, bound photo book
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This piece reflects on how the abundance of digital reproduction erodes the uniqueness of once-special moments. By repeatedly degrading the quality of sunset photographs, I commented on how overconsumption of media diminishes authenticity, replacing awe with monotony. The sunsets, originally vibrant, rare, and intimate, become distorted, pixelated, and hollow as they are reproduced. Using a single image, the visual collapse mirrors how technology’s endless replication numbs our emotional response to beauty. The process itself – compressing, re-saving, and degrading files – became an act of critique, demonstrating how easy it is for meaning to dissolve in the flood of digital consumption.
Artist statement:
Phantom Glow
This photograph captures the stark contrast between light and darkness, isolating the solitary glow of a phone screen in an otherwise shadowed room. The light spills across the subject’s face while the rest of the environment fades into black, emphasizing the emptiness surrounding the moment. The work explores how illumination can both reveal and conceal—how the glow that connects us to the digital world can also intensify feelings of isolation. The high contrast between brightness and shadow mirrors the emotional divide between connection and loneliness, suggesting that in the quiet of the dark, the light of the screen becomes both comfort and confinement.
Digital photograph, shot on Nikon D3500
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Artist statement:
Dependent
In this installation, I translate a quote from The Matrix into a physical experience that echoes its message. Each letter of the phrase is cut into a “film strip” like paper roll. This is then placed on a “reel,” and the viewers have to pull the reel through the projection area, requiring a physical interaction, as well as requiring projection, an act controlled by technology, to uncover the meaning. This makes them complicit in the very system the quote critiques. In the end, the finished reel is piled on the ground, a real representation of the length and finality of the quote. The work embodies tension between dependence and awareness. The viewer cannot fully access truth without the very technology the piece warns against. The mysterious quality of the letters asks viewers to question how reliant we are on screens, to reveal “truths” in the modern world.
Full Quote: "You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.”
Cardboard, paper, individually provided light
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Artist statement:
Look UP
This pin invites a quiet but public challenge to everyday habits. Worn by many, it transforms its wearers into moving signposts, each one a small disruption of the constant scroll. If someone notices the message long enough to read it, they’re already “halfway there” to resisting media addiction. By embedding the reminder on bodies instead of billboards or screens, the piece interrupts routines and offers an alternative to the endless flow of notifications. Its simplicity and irony are intentional: a static, analog pin—rather than a glowing icon—delivers a call to presence. The work’s goal is not only visual but behavioral, prompting moments of self-awareness that can help break cycles of compulsive consumption.
Professionally printed pin, originally designed artwork
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Artist statement:
One Against Many
This painting explores how screens can consume attention while also providing the possibility of escape. Silhouetted figures face a glowing surface resembling a digital screen, their bodies bathed in its artificial light. One figure, however, stands outside the illuminated zone, rendered in full white against the black background, a visual metaphor for breaking free from passive consumption. The stark contrasts of dark and light dramatize the tension between conformity and individuality. This piece becomes both a critique of our collective entrancement and a hopeful symbol of agency. While the cycle of overconsumption is powerful, stepping away remains possible.
Acrylic paint on canvas
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Artist statement:
Escaping
This sculpture transforms the screen into a physical trap. Using cloth stretched across a phone-shaped frame, I press a face and hands into the surface, creating an imprint that looks as though someone is straining to break free. The work literalizes the sensation of being “stuck” in media consumption: the screen is no longer a neutral tool but a barrier that absorbs identity. The distorted imprint evokes both suffocation and emergence, capturing the contradictory relationship we have with devices. While inspired by personal frustration, the piece gestures toward a collective experience, asking viewers to confront how much of themselves remains pressed against their own screens.
8ft x 3ft, wood, paint, elastic fabric, staples, nails
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Artist statement:
Through DIfferent Eyes
This diptych focuses on the physical toll of technology through the metaphor of light. On one side, a subject’s eye and partial face are shown under natural illumination; on the other, the same features are saturated in cold blue light. The juxtaposition captures how screen exposure alters not just physiology, but also perception, where natural presence becomes replaced with artificial strain. Close-up framing emphasizes intimacy while also evoking clinical examination, as though diagnosing the invisible harms of overuse. This piece underscores that technology’s impact is not only psychological or social but also embodied, literally reshaping how we see and are seen.
Digital photo collage, studio lighting, shot on Nikon D3500
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Artist statement:
Disconnect commons
This design imagines an offline sanctuary: a building structured to limit technological intrusion. Using thick walls, signal-blocking technologies, and a Faraday cage integrated into the architecture, the space deliberately cuts off wireless access, forcing visitors into face-to-face interaction. Large windows, cafés, and comfortable communal spaces create warmth and openness, emphasizing that social connection flourishes without digital distraction. The building operates as a critique of how environments are increasingly shaped for screen dependence. Here, architecture itself resists overconsumption by fostering human presence. It is both functional and symbolic, a reminder that space can actively reframe behavior.
Digital rendering and floor plan, created using Adobe Creative Suite
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Artist statement:
Infinite Scroll
This sculpture translates the intangible act of scrolling into a burdensome physical form. A roll of printed images, ranging from personal photographs to memes and screenshots, spills “endlessly” from a mounted phone, unraveling across the floor. What is usually an invisible gesture becomes heavy, cluttered, and taking over physical space. By overwhelming the viewer with its excess, the piece mimics the fatigue of digital saturation. The “infinite” becomes tangible and inescapable, confronting audiences with the endless feeds that promise excitement but deliver exhaustion.
Cardboard, printed images, paint