This semester I have been exploring my emotional response to the recent passing of my mother in the context of photography. I returned to our family home where I lived with my mother and sister and where I found her the day she passed away. I combed through the house, taking pictures of its spaces and objects. I also collected and took with me many of her souvenirs and personal effects to learn more about her. Once back in my studio, I experimented with adding text to these images as a way to more directly integrate my memories. In the long run, I found the results effective but maybe too intense. I want to make images that say something about loss but not in a morbid way. I want the audience to find their own relationship to the emotions in the pictures and not just have the work be about me.

These realizations gave rise to my current work featured in this exhibition. I again went home knowing I needed to see the space in a new way. I found what I was looking for in light and shadow, the way natural light illuminates surfaces and highlights objects, the way shadows erase differences. It was almost as if the light and its shadows created a dialog between presence and absence. After printing these new images, I realized that the light and dark told the story on its own and I no longer felt the need to add text. My work, Grouping #1 (The Home) is the result of this experience.

At the same time I continued my exploration of my family’s material possessions. I have spent much of my time this year in my studio space with the items that used to be on my mother’s dressers. On my trips home I found folders in closets and boxes of old family photos, many of which I had not seen before. I began to discover more about my family than I had known while my mother was still living. In comparison to the home images that focus on the ethereal, Grouping #2 (The Souvenirs) explores the way personal possessions and physical accessories can tell stories about my family and my own life.