2022 ZONTA Ashburton Art Gallery Exhibition

 

'Memory'

This painting is inspired by an old photo of my great grandmother and her siblings. I was drawn to it; it’s exciting to be able to view a memory that is not my own, of family members I have never met.

Wondering if the building in the photo still existed, caused me to think about the different rates memories and material objects fade. In the painting, where the environment/structure behind the figures is static, the figures are scraped across it; blurred. The way each layer is treated reflects how permanent they are as a memory, and how memories distort and fragment over time.

Although changing gradually over time, the environment always exists; the horizon remains a rugged line. Buildings become dilapidated, disappearing into the ground over time, however tend to stay longer than people who inevitably die and then only exist in photographs as memories. As their physical beings are removed from the world, they are wiped across the canvas; leaving behind memories, fleeting in relation to the earth's timeline.