At this point in my program at the RCA, a tutor told me to challenge the notion of a face... to make a portrait of the neurological issue that interested me at the moment, but without depicting an individual face. Simultaneously, I had been disagreeing with painting on canvas, finding it too conventional and restricted for the feelings and concepts I wanted to convey...
This confluence of factors led me to try engraving (with a dremel tool) on frosted perspex (because it was an offcut laying around)... and to depict a face, but a face without identity, only with age.
The thing in the back of my mind these past weeks had been my grandparents. My mom had recently told me that her dad had been a bit confused as of late, having a hard time recognizing people and places. And although my grandmother had now recovered from a fall that caused brain swelling and a bout of alzheimers-like symptoms, my grandfather seemed to be declining steadily.
He always knew who he was, but not when and where. And sometimes, by not recognizing his own children or grandchildren, he momentarily lost pieces of himself, like the fact he was a father and grandfather.
Untitled, Engraving on Frosted Perspex, Acrylic Paint
Identity and memory are inextricably linked. If you lose your memories, I believe you lose most of who you are. We are informed by our lived experience, and our record of lived experience is our memory (and maybe our genes). Its hard to come to terms with this while seeing my grandfather lose his memory. I like to think he is still very much himself, but I'm not sure he is.
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