Born in Nashville, Tennessee, Andre Ramos-Woodard is a fine art photographer whose works evoke(s) a dreamlike and surreal approach to the photographic medium, exploring conceptual art and digital manipulation to convey ideas of sexual, personal, and racial identity through internal conflicts. Ramos-Woodard is influenced by personal experiences he went through while discovering his identity – he is queer and African-American, both of which are historical subjects of discrimination. He uses his art to accent the ideas of separation between him and the viewer, specifically those that may not resonate with the problems within minority groups in contemporary culture. “The voices of the individual deserve to be heard: especially those of the outnumbered,” states Ramos-Woodard. He received his BFA from Lamar University in Beaumont, Texas and is currently pursuing his MFA in Photography at The University of New Mexico.
I understand how you feel.
My work is heavily influenced by personal experiences and my outlook on the world around me. This body of work is no different. “I understand how you feel.” is an exploration of personal identity. This is my attempt to visualize some of the internal conflicts that do and have manifested in my head, both past and present. My exclusive hope for this project is that I find some sort of comfort with my thoughts, my depression, my aspirations, and my anxieties. While this project has a lot of personal influence, I hope for it to be digestible and broadly decipherable to a general public.
Not only is this work a visualization of personal strife, it is a conversation with the viewer. Through this work I ask myself, can I interpret my own complex thoughts better if I can see them? Can someone outside of myself understand these thoughts through my work?
To view more of Andre Ramos-Woodard’s work please visit their website.