About "Remembrance" series, 2025-

"Exploring the quiet weight of memory, motherhood, and the photographs we leave behind."

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“Remembrance” is a series of intimate oil paintings that honor and reimagine lost family photographs, both from my own archive and found images discarded by others. In an era where AI-generated images and curated social media feeds distort reality, this project embraces the tactile, expressive nature of painting to reconnect with the past. With a soft, vintage palette and gestural marks, these works evoke the hazy, shifting nature of memory itself.  

 

Influenced by artists such as Daisy Patton and Brenda Draney, I approach these portraits with a balance of abstraction and narrative. Like Patton, I use found photographs to explore connection and loss, while Draney’s expressive minimalism reminds me that what is left unsaid—or unpainted—can hold just as much weight as what is depicted.  

 

By working from these forgotten portraits, I explore themes of motherhood, memory, and intergenerational connection. My mother was mostly absent in my early childhood, and as a result, photos from that time are scarce—often a mother’s role is to document family moments, and when she is missing, so are the images. Through expressive strokes, color, and abstraction, I reinterpret these photographs, not as exact replications, but as deeply personal meditations on identity, trauma, and healing.  

 

This project is both autobiographical and universal, inviting viewers to consider the fragility of memory and the significance of preserving stories before they are lost. Through “Remembrance”, I seek to honor the unseen, give presence to the forgotten, and find connection through the act of painting.

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Project and exhibition supported by the Ontario Arts Council, an Agency of the Government of Ontario.