2018 | Blood

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This series consists of portraits painted from my archive of family photographs. The portraits are painted in oil on thin sheets of unprimed paper. Each portrait has two parts. There is the original portrait painted with brushes on the left. Then there is the resulting bleed through portrait on the right. The bleed through was made by placing a second sheet of paper underneath the top sheet while I painted. As I applied paint to the top sheet, the paint bled through onto the second sheet underneath. For me, these two parts of the portrait poetically embody the imprint family leaves, while also reflecting on the unreliable nature of memory. Memory allows us to recall the past in the present so that we envision both simultaneously. This stereoscopic view of past and present is how we understand our experiences. However, just as information is distorted and lost as it bleeds through the paper, parts of the past are distorted and lost when we recall it through memory.

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In cases where a work did not perfectly fit the themes of a series, I placed that work according to date. I placed these less related works at the bottom of the page.