Artist Statement

For this piece, I wanted to explore the ways in which we perceive time through our interactions with photo archives. I was inspired by a text I received from my sister: “Not to be insane but do you want to get matching tattoos?”

I created a large scale heart-shaped pillow with those words embroidered with felt, alongside a series of 10 childhood photographs, annotated with Posca pens. Thinking about the parallels between the puncturing of the skin in the tattooing process and the puncturing of the pillow in the embroidery process, I wanted to explore a sense of silly earnestness in the concept of permanence associated with tattoos. For the photographs, I drew on “matching tattoos”, using bright colors and cliché symbolism like hearts, skulls, roses, and cherubs.

I titled this piece Past and Present on Parallel Timelines, toying with the idea of time as simultaneous rather than linear. Are we living in the same bodies in which we experienced past memories? What happens if we start including the past within the concept of “permanence”? Through this piece, I explore this idea of our actions in the present not only affecting the future but also the past.