Statement

Memory-while present enough to form the foundations of our identities and narratives of our lives-can be ephemeral shape shifters, refusing to be stationary and absolute. They evoke strong emotions against our will and can frustrate our desire to relive the moments we hold sacred.

An attempt to combine the hazy outlines of an object or the crispness of a figure is made with the materials in the paintings that comprise my body of work; ink and paint are essential in exploring and experimenting with the visual nature of recalling a memory. Personal photographs depicting family traditions or mundane autobiographical moments provide a strong starting point for my work, and through a combination of these photos and preliminary gestural sketches, a balance is found between my current emotional impressions of an event and between the photographs depicting the same event.

It is the past experience of losing irreplaceable analogue photos, whether from hurricanes or simply misplacing them in a move, that drives to create such works. Like the memories I carry, the shifting evolution of these works can give new insight to people, places, and experiences that I continuously recall. I would like to invite the viewers to not only question the nature of the memory, but also share a place in the presented images, to complete the unrecognizable parts with their own experiences, and to walk away feeling a sense of empathy.