Artist Statement for my photography final

“Distant Memories”
2009


Each day we create and remember memories. We then categorize them in our minds, some as memories we wish to forget while other are suppressed unconsciously. We compile memories all together, in some ways as compiled events one on top of another. As time goes on memories fade and as we age the more memories we create. With more time also allow for greater distance in between our memories and what our minds are able to remember. In working on this "Distant Memories" series I was able to create how I visually see images in my mind. Some details are lost and images are blurred. Some are foggy and not as vivid as they once were. The images in this series are specific to memories in my childhood. Memories created around my childhood home. After taking images of how my old house looks like today, it reminded me of all the suppressed memories and the forgotten things of my childhood. As a way for me to blend the two and making the past and present one, I used a technique similar to double exposing an image as you would if working in the darkroom. I photographed images of how my once childhood home looks now and then overlaid scanned images over them of my visual memories of “the past” as I see it in my mind. I took my past childhood images and made some translucent giving them an opaque look. I did this to represent the lost detail that time has caused as well as to represent how things use to be. Distant memories that are somewhat forgotten. These past memories are not vivid like they once were. The photographs of the present are clear because to me they are lucid memories because I see the house today as it is. The present holds clear while the past flashes in as an opaque snapshot. I like how photography allows the viewer to see an image and gather from the photograph their own thoughts, feelings, emotions and memories and apply those things to their own work. This idea holds true to many people. These photographs have a sense of emotional depth that the viewer might not be able to relate to like I do. However, photography allows the viewer to speak through the photograph and although these images are unique to me, everyone has some visual memory of something in which some are more clear than others and the images appear as snapshots of what the memory looks like. This series allowed me to preserve both past and present memories as one.


Ashley