Miya Turnbull is a visual artist living in Halifax, NS. She works mainly with masks and self-portraits as a way to explore persona, self-image and identity. This series of Origami Self-Portraits was inspired by her brother and her mom. They are a humorous and fun way to incorporate something from her youth and heritage as a mixed Japanese Canadian into her larger body of work. She uses these Origami pieces as 'masks' to cover and change her face for interesting photoshoots. You can see more on her website: www.miyaturnbull.com and Instagram @miyamask.

Gallery

Miya Turnbull's origami works are an extended self-portrait exploration that complement her more traditional mask forms. There is a kind of surreal quality - a sense of displacement or altered reality in Miya's work as her photographic image is revised, reformed and altered and used to mask her visage.

The graphic power of the multiple sets of eyes, nose and mouth staring back at you is at once disquieting and intriguing. You feel as though you are being watched a well as watching. There is a sense of playful whimsey as well that belies the meticulous care needed to create these folded self-portraits.