As technology progresses and becomes more accessible, photography has become an overwhelming system of storage for our memories.  Photographs were once intended to be lasting, tangible, images.   Now photographic images are more disposable, unwitting snapshots of any and every moment we feel the need to preserve.  I believe that the impulsive need to conserve moments in time via the preservation of images could be a symptom of a larger problem in our society, resulting in a lack of focus and meaning during those actual moments.

Through paint, I am asking the viewer and myself to focus and find something meaningful in such a hasty photo.  In my work, I use one of the many “leftover” photos in my phone—the ones that weren’t posted, printed, or deleted.  I paint this image over and over as a way to reference the abundance of these types of photos made possible by digital memory storage.  The images gradually abstract, representing how our concern for capturing moments in time is subverted by devices that actually take us out of the moment.  Paintings are typically important commodities.  I painted a one of my leftover images in order to bring attention to forgotten pictures and lost memories due to the need to preserve.  Through painting, I find meaning in disposable aspects of our culture.