ARTIST STATEMENT
In my personal work, I photograph emotionally rather than technically. I am less interested in recording the world as it appeared than in revealing how I experienced it. The colors in my photographs are not always the colors that were there, but the colors I saw, felt, and remember. An image may soften or blur as memory does; at times, it may reflect a moment experienced through tears.
I do not correct the flaws or irregularities within my personal photographs. I embrace them and claim them as extensions of myself. Shifts in color, altered tones, softness, and imperfections are part of my visual language. They are not departures from the work, but evidence of my presence within it.
My work is deeply personal, shaped by memory, identity, legacy, and the experiences I carry with me.
My Caribbean roots and my upbringing in Queens continue to shape the way I see. The women, places, and histories that have formed my life remain present in the work. Working across film, digital photography, self-portraiture, and mixed processes, I allow feeling to guide the way I use color, light, and form.
Photography is a way for me to understand what I have experienced, to preserve what might otherwise be lost, and to give form to what can be difficult to express.
Whether I turn the camera toward myself, a landscape, or an object that holds personal meaning, my work asks what remains. It is an ongoing exploration of memory, inheritance, presence, and the quiet traces that shape who we become.
BIOGRAPHY
CJ Reitman is a fine art photographer and visual artist of Bajan descent, born and raised in Queens, New York.
Working across film, digital photography, self-portraiture, still life, collage, and mixed media, her practice explores identity, heritage, memory, and personal and ancestral narratives.
Reitman earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography and Related Media, magna cum laude, from the Fashion Institute of Technology, where she also minored in Art History. Her photographs have been exhibited in group exhibitions, recognized in photography competitions, and featured in photographic publications and projects, including FotoFika 2020 All Stars.