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Mementos: Abstractions From a Troubling and Tragic Year Worth Keeping
Mementos are recordings of life, kept and scrapped and tucked away to remind us of someone or some time. They are the elongated pennies from those machines, a piece of sea glass, a corsage, a keychain, ticket stubs.
While creating these works over the last few months I asked myself, are there any mementos from this yearlong catastrophe? My older paintings often contained bits of letters, certificates, receipts or photos - tiny treasures kept and lost and found again. But what is there to keep from 2020? Certainly no concert ticket stubs nor boarding passes for most of us. These works have none of those elements. They only contain the unmarked passage of time. The emotion, panic, monotony, distress, gratitude, fatigue, loneliness, and beauty of an unsettling year.
When I reflect on this year there are many things I’d like to forget. But some things I will tuck away for safe-keeping. Making do with less. Offering support. Looking for connection and finding it. Studying. Listening. Looking inward. Celebrating the mundane. Letting go.