Artist Statement
Reflect on Time: Capture the Moment
Memories are reflections of our lives, like looking through a mirror distorted by our dreams, hopes, fears, and joy. We capture memories without trying or really knowing why, and I often find myself doing the same thing with photographs; it’s almost a compulsion. And now that there’s no cost to taking an exposure, we take them without really thinking about it. So if I don’t remember what I had for lunch last Tuesday, do I need to keep a picture of it? We’re all digital packrats—it’s getting harder to find those gems amongst the noise.
Those gems have a quality—an essence—that evokes not just factual memories but emotional ones, and those, stored either on film, as bits, or in neurons, are the ones that really stick. It may be the expression on a face, a texture in nature, or a snapshot of a moon launch; all capture an experience of belonging to a place, person, and time, and it takes all three to make a truly memorable image.
As an artist I build complex surfaces, entwining multiple images like a bard weaves a story, to create a rich surface from multiple fragments. In the end, these fragments tell a story—not a literal one, but a reflection of my collection of memories, moods, and life. My work is both art and photograph and follows the intuition of my creative voice, telling stories of my memories. Yet it’s still incomplete.
We’re taught about complementary colors at a young age. To experience art requires complementary memories—my memories captured in the work and the memories of the viewer together create a combined experience that’s unique: Everyone will see something different, feel a different emotion, and have a different reaction to the work. We’re all involved in telling the story together.