Vestige, 2012
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Flat-back case binding. Pulp painting, inkjet printing, screen printing, and letterpress printing on handmade paper.
72 pages. Edition of 5. |
Having almost no episodic recall, I am fascinated by the function of memories and their role in relationships. Human brains form memories through conglomerations of reality, stories, emotions, and perception. With the addition of time degrading the clarity of events, these moments can quickly become glimmering shrines of an idealized past that is adjacent to truth.
Vestige explores the glorification of half-forgotten memories through pixel patterns, text taken from obituaries of father figures, my own writing, and kaleidoscopic ornamentation. The pixel patterns that form much of the imagery were extracted from a family photograph I have no memory of. The viewer is never given more than hazy scraps of the complete image, mimicking my own lack of clear recall. The obituaries in the book are those of father figures I have never known. They embody the idealization of the past and serve to immortalize only the best of someone. I find obituaries particularly interesting because of the repetitive language used in them. Phrases like “beloved husband” and “devoted father” can prompt us to reminisce about the deceased fondly, but they can also shorten the depth of our memories, particularly if identical phrases are used four more times on the same obituaries page.
Vestige explores the glorification of half-forgotten memories through pixel patterns, text taken from obituaries of father figures, my own writing, and kaleidoscopic ornamentation. The pixel patterns that form much of the imagery were extracted from a family photograph I have no memory of. The viewer is never given more than hazy scraps of the complete image, mimicking my own lack of clear recall. The obituaries in the book are those of father figures I have never known. They embody the idealization of the past and serve to immortalize only the best of someone. I find obituaries particularly interesting because of the repetitive language used in them. Phrases like “beloved husband” and “devoted father” can prompt us to reminisce about the deceased fondly, but they can also shorten the depth of our memories, particularly if identical phrases are used four more times on the same obituaries page.