what interests me about our memories is not what we remember but what we forget. the experiences, the moments in our lives that get pushed to the back of our mental drawer and lay there, discarded and disregarded. these are the things that we seem not to need in our day-to-day existence
but I think that these forgotten moments are never truly lost. I believe that our personalities are created by the sum total of our experiences. whether we remember them or not, our moments make us who we are and whether they are deemed good or bad we use them and build upon them to deal with ensuing encounters.
I am therefore interested in how our memories are transformed from a figment into something more physical. the way that what has happened to us throughout our lives remains with us but is somehow changed. it lies within us as something chemical. a residue of experience.
the painted-over pages in my work “you remain” represent something experienced and then forgotten. the pages remain, like a book may remain on your bookshelf after you have finished reading it. it is there for you to pick up and hold even if the majority of the words have vanished from your recall. the intention of the book remains but it has been transformed into a personal experience, into something else other than words and paper, it has become part of us. chemical. physical.
the prose written over the top of the pages echoes this idea with a possibly romantic elegy to a lost love that is transformed into something more sinister by the final word of the sentence. again I am interested in how our memories are modified. the beautiful feelings that once were are changed, in this instance, into something bitter and acrid. but this bodily chemical also helps us digest our next meal. it is both an aid to digestion and a feeling of peevish anger. our memories are like this , I feel. they evoke feelings within us but also once absorbed and forgotten become our very being, allowing us to make judgements on future events.
memory is transformed into instinct.
