the forgetting
How is the body a vessel for memory? How do the stories we recall and recount create who we are? And what happens when one can no longer remember their own story? These are the questions explored in this body of work through the lens of memory loss and family. (Full artist statement, video and artist talk below.)
Yukon Arts Centre Gallery | Whitehorse | 2023
Yukon Arts Centre Gallery | 2023
Great Mother Dress | canvas, acrylic and oil paint, Velcro, wire | 66 x 32 x 32 inches | 2020
Artist Talk | Yukon Arts Centre Gallery | 2023 | Photo credit: Mike Thomas
House Dress | drapery fabric, oil on canvas, zipper, buttons, tulle | 48 x 32 x 32 inches | 2020
House Dress (detail) | Photo credit: Mike Thomas
Faculty Gallery | Emily Carr Uninversity | 2021 | Photo credit: Michael Love
Portrait of My Parents | willow charcoal, acrylic and oil on canvas | 55 x 43 inches | 2020 | Photo credit: Michael Love
Portrait of My Parents (detail)
What Gets Passed Down | oil on canvas | 55 x 43 inches | 2020 (private collection) | Photo credit: Michael Love
What Gets Passed Down (detail) | Photo credit: Michael Love
Portrait of My Grandmother | acrylic oil paint on canvas | 68.5 x 48.5 inches | 2021 | Photo credit: Michael Love
My Mother, The Bull | acrylic and oil on canvas | 70 x 43 inches | 2021 | Photo credit: Michael Love
When I Dream of You... | oil on canvas | 67 x 39 inches | 2021 | Photo credit: Michael Love
Bloodlines | acrylic and oil on canvas | 68 x 48 inches | 2023
Perpetual Dreaming | oil on canvas | 70 x 48 inches | 2021 | Photo credit: Michael Love
Searching for Mrs. Pape | charcoal, acrylic and oil on canvas | 78 x 48 inches | 2021 | Photo credit: Michael Love
Searching for Mrs. Pape (detail) | Photo credit: Michael Love
The Family | acrylic and oil on canvas | 78 x 48 inches | 2021 | Photo credit: Michael Love
Unforeseeable Lines of Flight | acrylic and oil on canvas | 78 x 48 inches | 2021 | Photo credit: Michael Love
The House that Grandpappy Built | oil bar and oil paint on canvas | 68 x 48 inches | 2023
Synapse (three views) | willow, wool and cotton yarn | 72 x 24 x 24 inches | 2020
Synapse (detail)
artist statement
How is the body a vessel for memory? How do the stories we recall and recount create who we are? And what happens when one can no longer remember their own story? These are the questions explored in this body of work through the lens of memory loss and family.
As I navigate the impacts of my parents’ dementia, I explore the fluid nature of memory and the importance of memory in the making of the self through the construction of a personal narrative. My experiences of the chaotic, fragmented and disorienting effects of memory loss are expressed visually through a language based on line, fragmentation and the emotive use of colour. Inspired by the notion of memory as a trace—an electrochemical pathway that threads its way through the brain, over-writing and tracing a new path with every recollection—I use the meandering, probing gesture of the blind contour line to guide the process of my work.
Tied together with the contour line is the notion of the storyline. Using what is called episodic memory—the recalling of specific events in one’s life—we each string together narratives that tell us and others who we are. These stories are not constructed alone; we define ourselves in relation to others, and others also define us. This is especially true in the context of the family since it is here that our earliest and often most lasting conception of self is formed.
By layering and fragmenting the images, effacing the lines, and burying the information within the body of the work, the paintings acknowledge the complexity of truth, the ephemerality of memory and the layered and evolving nature of the human subject. The effects of dementia are like the breaking apart of the story. What is revealed is sometimes not what we expect and ultimately leads to the question “What can we truly know of others and ourselves?"
How is the body a vessel for memory? How do the stories we recall and recount create who we are? And what happens when one can no longer remember their own story? These are the questions explored in this body of work through the lens of memory loss and family.
As I navigate the impacts of my parents’ dementia, I explore the fluid nature of memory and the importance of memory in the making of the self through the construction of a personal narrative. My experiences of the chaotic, fragmented and disorienting effects of memory loss are expressed visually through a language based on line, fragmentation and the emotive use of colour. Inspired by the notion of memory as a trace—an electrochemical pathway that threads its way through the brain, over-writing and tracing a new path with every recollection—I use the meandering, probing gesture of the blind contour line to guide the process of my work.
Tied together with the contour line is the notion of the storyline. Using what is called episodic memory—the recalling of specific events in one’s life—we each string together narratives that tell us and others who we are. These stories are not constructed alone; we define ourselves in relation to others, and others also define us. This is especially true in the context of the family since it is here that our earliest and often most lasting conception of self is formed.
By layering and fragmenting the images, effacing the lines, and burying the information within the body of the work, the paintings acknowledge the complexity of truth, the ephemerality of memory and the layered and evolving nature of the human subject. The effects of dementia are like the breaking apart of the story. What is revealed is sometimes not what we expect and ultimately leads to the question “What can we truly know of others and ourselves?"