The subject of my work is the casual family snapshot. I choose the images for their composition, their drama or lack thereof; for their awkwardness or beauty. These images are...
The subject of my work is the casual family snapshot. I choose the images for their composition, their drama or lack thereof; for their awkwardness or beauty. These images are especially evocative because of their universality. Birthday parties, Christmas morning, babies and weddings and potlucks and school plays; many of us share these memories or similar ones from childhood and our later formative years. Photo albums, viewed through the glow of nostalgia, capture a moment which is now out of reach and sometimes deceptively rose-colored. I seek out unexpected, poorly planned or badly staged pictures to attempt to illustrate my conflicting emotions about the past.
I am acutely aware of a contradiction within myself: I desire the intimacy and security of family togetherness but recoil from a sense of suffocation brought about by expectations, bickering, and my own social awkwardness. I want to explore that contradiction in my paintings.