Places We Have Been

Solarplate Intaglio

Digital Painting

As in any good story, a protagonist experiences a number of life lessons, leading them down the line from tough decisions to personal growth. And we are a world full of protagonists. When faced with challenging times, we do what we feel will protect us and (arguably) learn from it. After enough time has passed, traumatic memories are tucked away and we shed the skin of our past selves behind, looking only forward, celebrating the new, wiser us.

Eventually, though, those memories come flooding back and we find ourselves again confronting the magnitude and consequences of our choices. Were the right decisions made? The right words said? You can’t help but wonder if this was the place—the exact time, the exact spot—where your friendship fell apart or your love was first realized. By rekindling fragments of our past selves, we are forced to trace the path between the person we once were and the person we have become, acknowledging the sometimes painful link between the two.

The series “Places We Have Been” focuses on the evolution of identity materializing from ghosts of our former selves. While looking at photos of landscapes that played a significant role in my life I found they felt startlingly unfamiliar. I remembered these places in a way that was painted in emotion; the landscape transforming from terrestrial to psychological. Reflecting the locations’ significance, I digitally painted objects into the scene to reify the emotions that I associate with a poignant memory of each place. Like these hypothetical artifacts in, each memory was once blindingly new and raw. The passing of time has taken some of their luster, leaving a whisper of their presence. A ghost, but certainly still present, much like the feeling you get in the pit of your stomach when you return to a place you have not been for years.