Illustrated Transfers
Top of the World4x4 inch photo transfer on 12x12 inch hand-torn watercolor paper with Ink Illustration
Floating 14x4 inch photo transfer on 12x12 inch hand-torn watercolor paper with Ink Illustration
Floating 24x4 inch photo transfer on 12x12 inch hand-torn watercolor paper with Ink Illustration
Top Of The World4x4 inch photo transfer on 12x12 inch hand-torn watercolor paper with Ink Illustration
Watchful4x4 inch photo transfer on 12x12 inch hand-torn watercolor paper with Ink Illustration
Artist’s Statement
We are always changing the stories we tell ourselves. Over time we learn to value new things, and often update our memories to reflect these new viewpoints, changing their meaning to us in the process. In a way, memories are like photographs that we are always retouching, burning and dodging the meaning of our life.
This series illustrates two aspects of memory; the desire to enhance or exclude parts of memory to align to our ever-changing values and beliefs, and the desire to draw outside the lines of our memories beyond what we directly experienced to integrate it with our larger understanding of the world.
The collage pieces each break apart a single image into 16 separate squares, hand transferred to individual sheets of handmade paper. The exact contents of the squares is random, but each creates a finished print separate from the larger image. Assembled together as a single work, the original image is revealed, but fractured and changeable, allowing the viewer to select a single square to view, or a row or column of two or more squares, assembling the viewing experience the way we assemble and select our memories.
The illustrated piece seeks to extend the memory in the image to include those half-remembered elements at the periphery, while taking creative liberties much the same way we extend our memories with new wisdom and information we’ve gained since. The gray pen lines fade back into the paper slightly like something half-glimpsed, only revealing details and depth on closer inspection.
The image transfer process reveals the image through the removal of paper, and the small amounts of paper often left behind adds to the dreamy, ephemeral feel of memory. Occasionally small spots of the image are removed along with the paper, and those are filled with gold leaf following the Japanese “golden joinery” tradition of kintsugi. This can be seen as a metaphor for how we repair and enhance our memories over time.
