Exhibition Statement

Somewhere Unrememberd explores the unstable relationship between memory, documentation, and the construction of personal history. Existing between the known and the forgotten, my work considers what it means to have lived an experience without retaining a memory of it, and how the traces left behind can become substitutes for recollection. Personal photographs, familiar interiors, and reconstructed scenes serve as points of departure for examining the distance between what is remembered, what is recorded, and what is ultimately lost.

The series of small paintings that stretch across the wall draws from family photographs from a childhood I cannot recall. These images are a record of a life that is undeniably mine, yet feels strangely unfamiliar. I attempt to capture this disconnect from my childhood self I don’t remember by anonymizing the figures. Looking at the photos through this lens reflects my own detachment to the images; while I know it’s my life captured in the photos, I feel no propriety over the memories.

In contrast, a series of memory-based paintings reconstructs scenes from my own recollections, translating fragmented mental images into physical records. The spaces are disproportionate, dwarfing the figure and capturing the inaccuracies of relying on memory. Together, these works explore the tension between the photograph as evidence and memory as an inherently subjective, unreliable process.

Other paintings continue my interest in liminal and forgotten spaces, depicting the forgotten underbelly of my grandparent’s house. These paintings serve as a portrait of a person through the space they inhabit, or as a time capsule for a period of their life. The collages play into the idea of photographs functioning as a placeholder for memories, even those that don’t belong to me.

Somewhere Unremembered reflects the desire to establish a tangible record of a life that cannot be fully recovered through memory alone. In response to the gaps in my own recollection, the act of photographing, writing, and painting becomes a means of documenting the present while attempting to reconstruct the past. The exhibition asks how we come to understand ourselves through incomplete records, inherited narratives, and memories that may no longer feel like our own. Suspended between personal experience and external evidence, these works inhabit the uncertain space between what remains and what has been forgotten.