I am interested in capturing ephemeral moments that reflect the dynamics

of experience and memory. While I use my smartphone to capture fleeting

moments of everyday life, I recognize that this technology is changing the way in

which people interact with each other and their surroundings, as well as how they

engage with memory. Often body language and focus of the individual suggests

emotional distance between figures, and highlights a growing pattern of

detachment from the here and now. People use the camera on their phones as a

placeholder to capture and store moments rather than rely on the memory of their

experience. As a result they are often more focused on documenting the moment

rather than experiencing it.

Working from my own photographs, I attempt to subvert the decay of

memory by allowing the photographic conventions to dictate certain aspects like

linearity, structure, focus and blur. Under these conditions, I explore the

associations to smartphone snapshots and their prolific presence within our

society. However, unlike a quick scroll through Instagram, I absorb myself within

the photograph, within that moment.

Trying to harness a moment and a feeling of human experience from a

photograph, over a period of time, leads to strategies different from those used

when painting from direct observation. I tend to distort the palette and play with

the relationship between illusion and painted matter. While the painting from afar

reads as representational, as the viewer approaches, the marks reveal

themselves as paint. I believe discoveries such as these are important because

they relate to the incompleteness of visual memory, appealing to aspects of

memory that are felt rather than seen. Not only is this interchange between

representation and paint important for its appeal to memory, but it also confirms

the object as not merely a representational photograph, but a living, breathing

moment.