Sean Codd’s work chronicles the struggle toward an emergence of the self. Using his own original paintings to create and then inhabit altered landscapes, Codd asserts that the individual does have the power to influence his or her environment. Yet this claim of empowerment is tempered by the appearance of his own nude body in the images, a reminder of human frailty. Codd’s juxtaposition of expressionism and discipline encodes a complex relationship between power and vulnerability, which is visually echoed in Codd’s varied strategies of melding painting and photography.
