Capstone Exhibition Statement (2023)
This installation is an exploration of memory, specifically my memory of my late grandpa. I started this project before he passed to celebrate him and how much of an impact he has made on my life. Continuing this project after his sudden death has been hard. Suddenly, I was grieving with the same paint I had been celebrating with. The studio became a place for me to grieve, remember, and heal.
My first day back in the studio after my grandpa’s death, I realized I hadn’t painted his face. His face is connected so heavily with my memory of him, but it was absent from the panels and canvas staring back at me. That day, I painted his face. I painted his hands that taught me how to graft a scion on a tree and I painted his hands that repaired an old watering can. I painted his back as he looked out onto the farm where he grew persimmon trees and so much more. I painted each moment collaged, layered and intertwined with one another, because that is how those moments appear to me in my memory.
Place is an integral part of my memory of my grandpa. I could never separate him from his farm. In order to celebrate the location, my mom and I harvested dirt from my grandpa’s farm and from the garden outside of his house. Dirt is rarely celebrated, but dirt and soil is what enables plants to grow. It is an essential building block for life. To bring dirt into the context of reverence and celebration, I have removed it from the ground and inlaid it into the two panels of my installation. I have also carefully placed dirt on the floor of the gallery to reference the ground from which the persimmon trees in my memories actually grew.