Artist Statement: Objet a || Unremembering

    Within my family albums are hundreds of photographs which I have carefully filed, labeled, and archived so that I can revisit past seasons of life, recall their memories, and enjoy the sense of nostalgia each has to offer. As I have sat on my living room floor, fully encircled by my life on paper, I would never have predicted that one day, some of the same snapshots that had once brought me so much happiness would become symbols of pain and sobering reminders of certain deceptions hidden beneath the emulsion. Coming into new realizations about my past and connecting specific images with new discoveries about myself and my life have caused me to experience a strong sense of internal conflict between acceptance and wishing that parts of my life had been different. Rather than choosing between the two, I decided to take a more empowering approach, and that is one of transformation.

            In this project, I remake old photographs, rendering them as new adaptations of their originals. This process involves the deconstruction and revisualization of the physical photograph, but more importantly it alters the way my memories are visually mediated. Old images take on new meanings as the aura of memory transcends from past into present works of art and receives new attributes through the restructuring of raw materials. By ruining the print and, by way of metaphor, its associated memory through the dripping of pigment inks, the pulling of emulsion, or the tearing of fibrous paper, I alter the representation of my past to one which is far from its original state. Tangibly destroying the prints and sculpting those materials into new works of art empowers me to take charge of my own story. I am no longer held captive by the grief of past experience, but rather find my story beautifully rewritten through this transformative process. Painful memory is effectively unanchored, unremembered, and released into new transcending realms of reinvention and retelling.