Te Guardo Los Olvidos

The title translates roughly to; ‘I’ll keep what you’ve forgotten’.

Naturally progressing from my past project, I took a step back from science and another step back from loss, focusing on the forgotten memories themselves. I painted a mindscape with my mother’s favorite childhood colors and vague references to the place where she grew up. Mountains through a window, plants inside and outside, mountains everywhere, really, that’s what Medellin is like.

By carefully ripping the canvas and discarding some pieces I made the memory incomplete and jumbled. A suggestion of a complete picture and a story, composed of hints and hidden layers. Not nonsensical, still recognizable, but not fully there.

Then by reorganizing the composition again and again, I imitated the act of failed remembrance. Finally, by tenderly folding up the painting pieces like clothes, I hid even more of the painting. Layering up forgetting, folding it as if I were to put it away and keep it. Knowing that it isn’t complete and cannot be kept.

Lost memories, incomplete memories, confused memories. The memories our parents and grandparents lose and we keep. We fold them, put them back together, and cherish them once they are lost in them and layered in us.