Eulogies

Our identities are tied to our experiences and our memories of those experiences. We use the combined memory of our past experiences to inform the choices we make in the present, and thesey new memories will then be used to help us make future decisions. It’s these experiences and memories that build our identities, and this building process feels solid. I know who I am; my identity is a solid thing because it’s built on solid ground.

But our memories are flawed, at best unreliable. They can be forgotten, adjusted, and even created out of pure fiction. When we remember, we’re doing so through the lens of our present selves. We’re no longer that person and our experience/interpretation of any past event is different, more removed. We add to (or remove from) that memory based on our current understanding, and that past experience is changed in some way. The original memory, and it’s original meaning, is lost forever. This “solid ground” that we’ve built our identities upon is actually malleable; it’s fragile. Our past is constantly being adjusted, recycled, and rewritten by the same identity building process that relies on it’s solidity.

Eulogies explores these ideas of memory and identity, and the malleability and fragility of both.

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“Eulogy 1971-1977” | Linocut on artist made paper | 36 x 36 inches

“Eulogy 1977-1986” | Linocut on artist made paper | 60 x 30 inches