I have a fixation with the idea of memories and the notion of “making” them. I often think about how little of my childhood I actually remember. There are stand-out moments, sure. A memory of playing in the sun, not the game so much (dinosaurs’ maybe?); but the way the sunlight felt on my skin and how the jeans I was wearing didn’t fit me quite right. Most of my memories are like that, fragments of feelings, incomplete and ethereal. I imagine it’s like that for most people and I can’t help but wonder why we focus so much on “Memory making” when most of those memories, if not kept alive via pictures, movies, or anecdotes, will be pruned and replaced with more pressing information. If the inevitable is forgetting most of what we are currently experiencing I wonder why we don’t frame it as experiencing the moment. I also wonder if anyone else considers such things or if it’s just something to fixate on when my depression flares up.
Regardless. The ephemera of memory is what started this project. I began thinking about women I had known or images I’d seen and what I truly remembered about them. While I can picture some faces very clearly in my head others are reduced to “pretty sures” as in “I’m pretty sure her nose looked this way, maybe just a touch longer” etc. That I could eventually parse out a drawing of someone from memory wasn’t something I was questioning, I’m sure I can. What I was more interested in was the abstraction of people; similar to what you’d experience in a dream. Where the idea of a person stems from what resonates rather than their physical appearance. Fragments of a haircut and a facial shape intertwine with a color or a set of glasses to form the amalgam that becomes your memory of them. This fixation started a series of portraits of women who have resonated with me. These pictures were based on people whom I know or have known and my attempt to capture them without being caught up in “perfectly” capturing their image as you would in a formal portrait. After all I have photographs for that. To view the rest of the collection click here.
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