FLUIDSOLID

 

 

My work is a personal narrative that attempts to expose the fallacy of memory, reveal the value of familiarity, confront uncanny recollection, and embrace nostalgia.

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When I recall a memory, there are aspects of the mental image that are defined, while others remain vague. Seemingly random, there are highly specific memories that are clear and others that have no structure or explanation.  I use the juxtaposition of natural and man made landmarks to trigger nostalgia and familiarity from these locations and to provide a contextual environment. These often are comparisons such as the vertical of fence posts and power lines mirrored with trees, worn carved paths and train tracks across the horizon that mimic riverbeds, canyons, and mountain ranges. These places were comforting to me and just vague enough to be open-ended. These places felt like coming home.

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My work began to evolve as I reevaluated my childhood home and how perspective made all the difference in memories. I shifted from open fields to manicured lawns, wild unkempt foliage to a thoughtfully placed tree in front of unified houses highlighting domestication and attempted control of nature. The last few years, like it has for many, home took on a different connotation. My childhood home and family were far from sight and mind, comfort and familiarity had to be reestablished in a new town and a new home and what I qualified as family also evolved. I started recreating my childhood homes as an amalgamation of what I remembered it to look like, old pictures of what it looked like when we lived there and google maps street view of what it has become. These distinctions also evolved each house so that it wasn’t just my home anymore, but it could be and often was anyone’s idea of home. Even more, this wasn’t to highlight the ideal and dream houses for many, but to spotlight the traditional American house and the average family home.

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Through media manipulations and image distortions, abstractions, and reduction, what remains is recognizable color, fragmented detail, or structural context in which to build upon. The materials I use lend themselves to layering, flowing and recreations. The linoleum prints mirror the information causing a fault in recognition, and the layered images build something new as they fade, evolve and restructure.  These techniques result in a fluid execution, and yet a solid result. The abstracted imagery alludes to unavoidable changes in a memory and the fallibility of recollection. Due to the precarious nature of memory, the result doesn’t intend to attain something that has faded, but rather it shows the forgotten aspects. I include what is remembered and expose what is not.

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My work is traditionally hung on the wall, equally spaced or salon style or placed on shelves and pedestals like the memories and trinkets they represent. Like a tchotchke, they are aesthetic and decorative but in opposition it is laced with preciousness and affection for how they are memorialized. Often times knickknacks that are displayed in homes are more cherished because of the memories they represent or hold rather than the value of the object. My work reflects the intimacy between represented memories and the viewer, and the bond formed.

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