2018 - 2020. Revision, A History of the Body. Cyanotype, embroidery thread, graphite on tracing paper, coffee.

2018 - 2020. Revision, We Remain Together. Cyanotype, inkjet prints on paper, etching, embroidery thread.

2018 - 2020. Revision, The Never-Ending Quilt. Cyanotype, etching, lithography, gum-bichromate, photogravure.

For years, I have been driven by the ideas presented in Camera Lucida, by Roland Barthes - specifically his search for truth in images of his mother after her death. Like Barthes, my fascination with photography began after the passing of my own mother, I embarked on my own search, compulsively recreating and altering photographs of her in the hopes of finding something true, something that felt essential to who she was. However, I have never found her in these photos, and have come to realize that this impulse is both impossible and a lie. The pieces in this gallery are all revisions of previous work, explorations that searched for the kind of truth about my mother that Barthes thought he’d found. These revisions address the despair of not ever having found what I was looking for and highlight this process while re-addressing the same questions that motivated the original piece while arriving at a different answer. This process of revision and deconstruction is critical to this work, and the grief it explores, as the physical cycle of construction and revision, becomes a metaphor for the function of memory itself; examing how our memories and understanding of death and our departed shift as we move on further in life without them.