STATEMENT OF WORK

My interrogation of my own memory–something that I once thought was pristine and reliable­–is the foundation of my work. In attempting to reconstruct familiar objects and places, I see how my mental image of something can erode simply by trying to recall it. For me, this slippage causes an eerie panic; I realized that memory is all you have left to cling to when the people who could corroborate your experiences are gone…memory and an always wanting archive of personal photos. Once the luxury of having someone to ask about a family-specific detail is stripped away, you are the only one left to determine what is the “truth” in attempting to preserve history. Did the couch in his room have three cushions? No, I think…it was four. I try to pin down the elements of these elusive spaces, at times rendering them as photo-realistically as possible to perhaps fool myself into thinking I’ve finally “captured” them. But it’s always the small things, the knick-knacks and desk clutter, the tomato can turned pen holder that I spot in the corner of a photo and long for the most.