Gold Leaf + Pastel

New form of painting I made

I thought I’d brain-dump this new form of painting I’ve been working on. I had to write an artist’s statement for submission to galleries, so I’ll include that as well.

I'm obsessed with how memory changes with time, the idea that each time you remember something, you're not remembering the event itself but how you last remembered it. In such a way, our memories are dynamic; they grow and evolve with us. I try to capture this in my mixed media series, collating gold leaf and oil pastel on a white canvas. Initially, there's a blank canvas and a clean slate. Then, I apply a layer of gold, representing the fallibility of memory. As I apply pastel to that layer, the gold begins to flake and crack, revealing our inability to capture a memory truly. I continuously patch these holes with more layers of gold leaf and pastel, repeatedly restoring and recoding the same memory. For my content, I focus on imagery from my past; moments I feel capture the beauty of spending a single moment in time just to let it pass. A moment I'm sure I do not remember correctly, but perhaps I like it better that way.

If anyone has any gallery recommendations, let me know. The eye got into one in Tokyo, but the other ones are available to show.