The Secret Keepers

“In the hands of a sophisticated abuser, even the most secure and strong-minded woman can be reduced to someone utterly unrecognizable, even to herself” - Jess Hill

The Secret Keepers explores the destabilizing experience of intimate partner abuse through a series of 21 photographs, created through seven distinct stages of editing, printing, and reprinting.

Each final image is crafted through an intentionally arduous process, mirroring the average of seven attempts it takes to permanently leave an abusive partner. Drawing on 175 years of photographic history, the series traverses digital long exposures, tintypes, and gelatin silver prints, navigating the dissonance of life with an abuser that is also the beloved, while referencing the prevalence of this epidemic throughout history, and its continued pervasiveness to this day.

Each stage impacts and alters the images, permanently obliterating some details and obscuring others. Like finding a charred but still identifiable object in the wreckage of a burned house, the images bear the impact of their journey through each process and revision, becoming a metaphor for survival. Grounded in personal history, the images give shape to the unseen: psychological abuse, coercive control, and the quiet erosion of self.

Exploring the threshold between beloved and abuser, safety and danger, reality and nightmares, these images hold the secrets of the epidemic of intimate partner abuse in their silent embrace. Bringing these hidden wounds to light, The Secret Keepers is both testimony and reckoning - an invitation to witness what often remains invisible, and a cry for help.

MEDIA

  • Lenscratch Article

    Read

  • photoED Magazine, Fall 2025

    Read

  • The Seven Stages - Process Video

    Watch

RESOURCES

If you or someone you know is experiencing intimate partner, gender-based or any other form of family violence, click here for resources.

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