The Beginning
30.10.2020
As this is my first post, I thought I would begin with how this all came to be. It was Christmas break, 2019. I was an art student starting my work for my senior exhibition. I had set out to create eight large paintings depicting life size human figures in different poses, rich in color and strong in texture. The intention was to illustrate, for lack of a better word, some journal entries I had written concerning specific moments of emotional intensity. I had almost completed one such piece, but was deeply dissatisfied with the outcome. That night I went to sleep dreading the task of completing the other seven paintings. Just after midnight I awoke with a start and with the idea that would take me in an entirely new direction. I quickly jotted down a few notes and fell back asleep.
The words “perpetual fragmentation” have been with me for quite some time. I cannot remember when I first heard them together, if ever, nor can I remember why at the time I wrote them down I found the pairing to be so significant. Regardless, I had them kept in a note on my phone with other pleasant sounding words and phrases.
Now for the memory bit. My final assignment for my intro to film photography course was about memory. The assignment brief was, well, brief, as they tended to be; the only criteria given that there must be three and they must relate to somehow memory. My mind immediately jumped to the confusion and deterioration of memory, especially as we age. One of my grandparents has Alzheimer’s and the deterioration and, ultimately, the total loss of memory is a set reality for her. Out of that association came three images:
The first image became the starting point for the rest of collection. It is entitled Layers and is the thirteenth image in the collection. At the time I did not think I would be including poems or word clusters (whatever you choose to label them), nor did I expect an impending global pandemic to be the backdrop for the opening of my exhibition. However, I am thankful for the context, without which the final result would not have been nearly as impactful. You can see the Perpetual Fragmentation collection here.
Here’s to more stories, images, and moments that influence me and hopefully interest you.