Found Photograph Paintings
My paintings and drawings start from vintage, discarded photographs, pulled from the dust of antique store bargain bins, abandoned family albums, and overlooked corners of local history archives. These images, cast aside and unclaimed, become raw material for reimagining. Through the alchemy of paint and charcoal, I translate these static snapshots into layered, evocative compositions that drift between dream and memory.
My process is intentionally open and fluid. I work in a painterly style, using traditional drawing or painting media to embrace ambiguity. The physicality of the materials guides me. Marks, brushstrokes, stains, and drips become veils, masking and revealing my chosen figures. The final images evoke memory. Background elements are blurred and identities left open to tell new narratives. This ambiguity is intentional. I do not wish to tell one story, but rather invite the viewer into a voyeuristic glimpse to a past that feels familiar, that may have never happened at all.
My work questions who gets remembered, who gets misremembered, and who gets erased. Most of the photographs I work from depict women. In revisiting and reimagining these images, I aim to elevate the narratives of our grandmothers, aunts, and community matriarchs. Their stories carry value, often lost or relegated to the margins. I see my work as a feminist act of recovery and reinterpretation, highlighting intimate, everyday scenes of forgotten women.
By tapping into a collective memory, I explore how we construct the stories we tell about our pasts and ourselves. My nostalgic paintings and drawings are about memory and misremembrance. I want the viewer to find their own reflections in the fragments I’ve chosen to preserve and transform.
My process is intentionally open and fluid. I work in a painterly style, using traditional drawing or painting media to embrace ambiguity. The physicality of the materials guides me. Marks, brushstrokes, stains, and drips become veils, masking and revealing my chosen figures. The final images evoke memory. Background elements are blurred and identities left open to tell new narratives. This ambiguity is intentional. I do not wish to tell one story, but rather invite the viewer into a voyeuristic glimpse to a past that feels familiar, that may have never happened at all.
My work questions who gets remembered, who gets misremembered, and who gets erased. Most of the photographs I work from depict women. In revisiting and reimagining these images, I aim to elevate the narratives of our grandmothers, aunts, and community matriarchs. Their stories carry value, often lost or relegated to the margins. I see my work as a feminist act of recovery and reinterpretation, highlighting intimate, everyday scenes of forgotten women.
By tapping into a collective memory, I explore how we construct the stories we tell about our pasts and ourselves. My nostalgic paintings and drawings are about memory and misremembrance. I want the viewer to find their own reflections in the fragments I’ve chosen to preserve and transform.
