There are certain projects that don’t begin intentionally.
Pastel Goths is one of those for me.
The idea started during a conversation turned argument about contrast: colour, mood, a tension between who we are and what we refuse to touch, the juxtaposition that colour could not threaten a gothic spirit, even if it tried. At the time, I didn’t realize the concept was saying something about my own life too, about partnership, compromise, and the quiet grief of trying to meet someone in a space they were never willing to enter.
This series became the place where I finally spoke that truth to myself.
For a long time, I carried the weight of a dynamic where I overextended, tried too hard, and lost parts of myself trying to fill gaps that weren’t mine to fill. Anyone who’s ever tried to love from a place of imbalance knows how heavy that becomes.
Edmonton holds pieces of that story for me, but going back wasn't about reliving it, though it fucking tried. It was about reclaiming myself.
Through photography, I got to turn something that once eroded me into something that expresses me. I got to use colour, styling, mood, and music to tell the story I couldn’t tell at the time, a story about effort, emotional distance, and what beauty could have existed if both sides were able to meet in the middle.
This series is closure. It’s quiet. It’s steady. It’s mine.
Pastel Goths is the visual language of that closure, a reminder that art can finish conversations our mouths never could. Seeing the final pieces now, I feel a peacefulness I haven't in awhile.
Sometimes healing is in taking a crux and turning it into art, sometimes it looks like choosing yourself again, and sometimes, it looks like finally meeting yourself in the middle.
