︎In Distortion︎Patricia Voulgaris︎In Distortion︎Patricia Voulgaris︎In Distortion︎Patricia Voulgaris
All images by Patricia Voulgaris, 2025.
In Distortion
Patricia Voulgaris
In many ways, this work is about reacting to life, to what I believe in, and how that is challenged and reflected back.
I took these images during my time at Yale. Grad school was a very intense two-year period, an important time for thinking about my place in the world, and of myself as an artist. I’m in a queer relationship, and my dad was having some health issues. I was traveling a lot, back and forth from New York City to New Haven. I was in and out of this weird artistic bubble. My world was very much in distortion. A professor said to me, “You live a double life.” I’ve always had this doubling, of being elsewhere and having to come back to reality. I think many artists struggle with this.
I am attracted to a complication of psychology, place, theme, and concept. It all collides at once, and becomes the backbone of the photograph. We had some really interesting artists come through Yale, like Angela Strassheim and Rory Mulligan. They were incredible. They just opened up, and spilled their secrets. Things don’t leave the room. We would share work, and it would become a really intimate and special space.
I was thinking a lot about all the shows I used to watch with my dad, like Ancient Aliens and Ghost Hunters—TV entertainment that he was addicted to. Most of us are interested in this subculture. I started going to haunted Airbnbs and locations, and interviewing the people running them. I was trying to understand who they were, and what this meant to them. Why is the space considered haunted? What is the history behind it? Combining the people and the places felt really true to me—something about it aligns with who I am as a person. What does it mean, to be haunted? What does it mean, to carry so much weight that you feel like you can’t get rid of it?
After graduation, we found out my dad had lung cancer. I had no idea that all this stuff I was interested in would amount to something greater. Now I’m at this point where I’m thinking, Where is my dad gonna go after he dies? What’s going to happen to me? What’s going to happen to my mom? What do I believe in, ultimately? Who am I, and what do I stand for? Death is an incredibly powerful force, but within that, there’s a lot of life, and a promise to carry out that person’s life. What are some of the brighter spots? How do you keep going with that weight, and all this unknown in the world?
Life for me right now is a play that keeps going. It’s so ridiculous, but also very beautiful at the same time. Terrifying, too. People are always joking, “I love your spooky work,” but no, actually, that’s reality. Life is frightening. It’s up to us to find that beauty, despite all the terrible things and uncertainty. How can we say that we’re people, if we can’t find that? There is such a strangeness to all of this. To exist is so silly. It’s important not to take it all so seriously.