layers of (me)mory 001
layers of (me)mory #001, 2020
I began this body of work by creating paintings depicting moments I could remember from my childhood. Always referring back and encompassing these various shapes and colours I saw as I thought of my early childhood growing up in Chile sharing with my father’s side of the family and then growing up in Bolivia, sharing with my mother’s side of the family. My mind tends to jumble everything up rather than keep things linear and I wanted to translate this into these pieces, so I began mixing together each painting as I created.
These paintings were created thinking of reappearing images from my childhood, you could call them motifs. In the process of creating these, all paintings have interacted with each other — they have either left a piece of themselves on another or taken a piece of another for themselves. In this way, the original images no longer exist, neither as individuals nor as groups, they have rather created something completely different, a new made up present. Through this process, the viewer no longer has direct access to the past memory, rather only the rearranged mixed remnants of new pieces from my mind, in a way reflecting the present.
This is one of sixty paintings from my new series, layers of (me)mory. These paintings were created thinking of reappearing images from my childhood, you could call them motifs. In the process of creating these, all painting have interacted with each other, and have either left a piece of themselves onto other or take a piece of others for themselves. In this way, the original images no longer exist, neither as individuals nor as groups, they have rather created something completely different, a new made up present. Through this process, the viewer no longer has direct access to the past memory, rather only the rearranged mixed remnants of new pieces from my mind, in a way reflecting the present.
This body of work was born out of my early childhood memories in an effort to reconnect with my past. I have always struggled with remembering my own souvenirs, and as people spoke to me about their own childhood I felt like I didn’t have the ability to retell my own story because of a lack of remembrance. Through these paintings I wanted to bring these memories forward in a way that stayed true to the way my mind works. The way I remember is not like storytelling in my head, but rather shapes and colours, my mind fixates to these elements rather than larger pictorial scenes.
I began this body of work by creating paintings, encompassing these various shapes and colours I saw as I thought of my early childhood growing up in Chile sharing with my father’s side of the family and then growing up in Bolivia, sharing with my mother’s side of the family. My mind tends to jumble everything up rather than keep things linear and I wanted to translate this into these pieces, so I began mixing together these paintings I created.
These paintings were created thinking of reappearing images from my childhood, you could call them motifs. In the process of creating these, all paintings have interacted with each other — they have either left a piece of themselves on another or taken a piece of another for themselves. In this way, the original images no longer exist, neither as individuals nor as groups, they have rather created something completely different, a new made up present. Through this process, the viewer no longer has direct access to the past memory, rather only the rearranged mixed remnants of new pieces from my mind, in a way reflecting the present.
This collection is divided into to parts, 001 and 002.
layers of (me)mory 001 consists of :
early recollections 001-060
woven impressions 001-004
