Collector of Memories

As a small child I would come home with pockets full of treasures; bottle caps, bolts, twigs. And so my collections began… As I collect, new items arise that lead to the next body of work. This time it was the simple shape and line of an oak leaf collected on a journey to my father’s home country of Latvia. And so the pilgrimage through my personal treasure trove of previously collected objects began too. The highly personal works uses simple items lovingly collated that represent myself and family present and past. I find new meanings and remember old memories through these images as a self-portrait of objects. The works are a collection of photopolymer gravure etchings (small vessels that hold immense meaning, but also simple beauty. The etchings are an embodiment of my relationship to the images and objects as well as the process of creation itself. I love the feel of the iron wheel of the etching press and the ink on my hands from printmaking combined with digital photomontage. I aim to realize time-worn images, such that the hallmarks of my work are soft detail and texture which seem to belong to the fibers within the paper itself. This series of images holds intense personal meaning; attachment to often long forgotten objects that hold personal memories that are also building future attachments and belongings.