About
My large-scale watercolor paintings investigate how we construct memories over time. I focus on childhood memories, drawing from my archive of actual family photographs taken between 1940 and 1980. These images document the family I know personally as well as those I know only from found photographs. They serve as the foundation for me to explore the nostalgia surrounding a formal family portrait or an intimate moment caught on film. When I create these paintings, I allow the watercolors to congeal and pool on synthetic paper. I vary the degree of detail with which I represent the figures central to my work, and often distort features that allude to the subject’s psychological state. My subjects slip into a background fog of geometric patterns and mundane objects. I carefully construct these backdrops referencing varied textiles, furniture, and other décor from near-distant bygone eras. By using these archival materials to explore and reinvent a family, or family moment, I create work that physically manifests the ways we mentally reconstruct our pasts.