Anthony Tokatlian
My name is Anthony Tokatlian. I’m a local Los Angeles resident, developing photographer, and political science major at Pepperdine University. My interest in photography derives from a broader concern with understanding how sustained attention—particularly to the natural world—alters perception, time, and meaning. My work explores the impermanence of organic life and examines how light operates, not as a neutral medium, but as an active force within this process—shaping what we see, and therefore what we understand. Rather than treating botanical subjects as static or purely descriptive, I use them as sites of ongoing transformation, where emergence, flourishing, decay, and renewal are continuously revealed through subtle shifts in illumination.
Rather than presenting growth and decay as incompatible, this series treats them as interconnected conditions disclosed through changing visual relationships. By using light to make time visible, these photographs reveal how form can shift, persist, and carry traces of renewal—even in moments of decline. This series ultimately reflects how beauty and meaning emerge through attention, and how light can transform ordinary organic forms into artifacts of impermanence and presence. Through dimmed surfaces, dissolving forms, softened contours, and shifting thresholds, the constellation of photographs conveys less about the botanical forms themselves than it does about time as it passes through them. In this sense, the work suggests that meaning is not inherent in the object itself, but in perceptual cues that can only be realized through sustained attention.
My approach is informed by the work of Zoe Leonard, whose practice frames attention—the deliberative process of intentional observation and sustained perception—as a method of constructing meaning, and Sama Alshaibi, whose work examines how environment, displacement, and framing shape perception. Their practices have guided my aspirations for this project, which position deliberation and ethical engagement as essential to the construction of meaning.
Rather than presenting growth and decay as incompatible, this series treats them as interconnected conditions disclosed through changing visual relationships. By using light to make time visible, these photographs reveal how form can shift, persist, and carry traces of renewal—even in moments of decline. This series ultimately reflects how beauty and meaning emerge through attention, and how light can transform ordinary organic forms into artifacts of impermanence and presence. Through dimmed surfaces, dissolving forms, softened contours, and shifting thresholds, the constellation of photographs conveys less about the botanical forms themselves than it does about time as it passes through them. In this sense, the work suggests that meaning is not inherent in the object itself, but in perceptual cues that can only be realized through sustained attention.
My approach is informed by the work of Zoe Leonard, whose practice frames attention—the deliberative process of intentional observation and sustained perception—as a method of constructing meaning, and Sama Alshaibi, whose work examines how environment, displacement, and framing shape perception. Their practices have guided my aspirations for this project, which position deliberation and ethical engagement as essential to the construction of meaning.
