This latest series of works on canvas is a study of memory. How do we record information? How do we prioritize it within our brain and how do we then recall it? More specifically, how does someone with an ageing brain recall it? Some years ago when I lost my mother I noticed something very specific happening with my, then 80-year-old grandmother. As a consequence of a progressive form of Alzheimer’s disease, her mind fused different, sometime conflicting characters with impossible time frames and places. For example, at times she was certain that someone who had passed away more than 20 years ago was still working at the local social services office… Minutes later, her memory reset and her recollection changed, she told a brand new version of the events.
Listening to her stories, I found myself visualizing how a stream of information in her brain might suddenly be “pasted” onto a removed area of her past, and how fascinating it is that within her mind, people, events, places and dates are instantly dynamic and interchangeable – to be rearranged in the next retelling just several moments later!
The Reflections Series is a manifestation of this dynamic memory. Every line is a specific person, place, date or an event and by first applying the color and then scraping it off and re – applying the mixture in another place, I bring her cognitive process to life. Within the series there are two distinct directions: paintings titled “A Million Miles from Now” with their dense and saturated linear elements and the openly meditative “Musings of an Old Man” which allow the viewer entry and easy movement through the painting’s space.
Each canvas could be a window into a different moment within her memory…