AnnMarie Tornabene - A Self-Portrait Photographic Journey
Rabbitholes and Revelations/Not Wonderland 2005- 2009
English:
AnnMarie was born in 1969 and grew up in the suburbs of Long Island, New York. It was the closest she was able to get to a country setting without residing in the north part of the state. She loved that she wasn’t far from farmlands, beautiful parks, forests, and nature preserves; many areas that were still left undeveloped leaving hints of past history.
In 2006, though, she moved closer to Manhattan, to the harsh realities of urban living. In Queens, NY, not far from “the big apple”, she saw a magnification of a complex, fast-paced, aggressive nature our society has become. Humanity, that was often hidden by technology and the vastness of a city, made it difficult for her to form interpersonal relationships. She found herself longing for an idyllic world – one where peace, love, and harmony resided.
The move, combined with other profound changes occurred in her life then including a fear of losing her identity; self-doubt was surrounding her every move and she started making poor decisions. Fairly rapidly, she felt like I was falling into a deep hole. With some therapy, AnnMarie started a quest to find connections and clues to how she arrived to the place that she was at. It was at that moment that everything felt surreal and the story “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland”, deemed appropriate for what was happening and the two series of work evolved soon after.