Resurrection
2010-2014
Personal Statement: Resurrection
I am fascinated by the things in life that are discarded. In antique stores, you can find countless old portraits; they are people abandoned, sold for a dollar or two. These people, separate from all records of their lives, from all personal connections, exist only in their photograph. Working from found images, I create a narrative based on the subject’s facial features and body language. Parted lips, a downcast eye or a tilted head all hint to some deeper emotion, some character trait from which I can re-imagine their story.
These paintings are a conversation between the past and the present, between imagination and reality, between the implied and the assumed. In the loss of these individual’s history, a freedom was gained: the freedom to create a new reality, a new life, a new way to look at the old and once forgotten.
I am fascinated by the things in life that are discarded. In antique stores, you can find countless old portraits; they are people abandoned, sold for a dollar or two. These people, separate from all records of their lives, from all personal connections, exist only in their photograph. Working from found images, I create a narrative based on the subject’s facial features and body language. Parted lips, a downcast eye or a tilted head all hint to some deeper emotion, some character trait from which I can re-imagine their story.
These paintings are a conversation between the past and the present, between imagination and reality, between the implied and the assumed. In the loss of these individual’s history, a freedom was gained: the freedom to create a new reality, a new life, a new way to look at the old and once forgotten.