The Names
2021-2022
This body of work seeds out of grief. It is my processing of the year I cared for my Mum as she lived and died with brain cancer. Tumors affected her ability to express herself, my role as carer included acting as translator. I read her needs through non-verbal communication. This connection was beautiful, awful, heartbreaking. As our communication fell away, so did my capacity to describe that trauma.
I returned to the studio after her passing, in search of the language to tell our story. There, the sun cast a stream of light through my window as I worked. Clay came alive, growing plant-like, shape-shifting vessels. Their shadows stretched out, informing their own becoming. Abstract wreaths, unraveling baskets, wriggling spider-hands carried me through grief toward a place of healing. I caught those glyphic shadows in cyanotypes.
The work itself is an act of translation. I transcribe loss to transform it. I search for meaning in the gaps between mediums, in the chasm of lost words. To hold what was lost, I press shadows to the page and bind them in blue.
