Archeology of memory 2013-2016
BackT he project "Archeology of Memory" consist of my series of paintings and drawings in mixed media reconstructing authobiographical memory through a range of techniques: from incorporation of found objects in the body of the paintings and image transfers to use of thick layers of acrylic paint and gels. On a related note, I should say that in my artistic practice I tend to accentuate a form of aesthetic realism with the purpose to ultimately interrogate whatever is perceived as truth. “Archeology of Memory” represents an artistic endeavor in personal mythology; namely, the desire to reframe key existential experiences via the peculiar mixture of fact and fantasy. The project is a progression following my earlier series, “Mirror Images”, which aim to transcend the norm of self and to project perceptions, leading to a mirroring of conceptual representations. The succession of reconstructed forms and images initiates indefinite translations from the past (memories), present (mirror) and future (projected), only to become symbolic and a metaphoric medium. Those are also the terms in which I would define the creative process behind “Archeology of Memory”. The purpose is to rebuild the past by bringing to the foreground memories with different levels of authenticity. When re-imagined, the missing pieces from the archive bring to distorted ‘truths’ about the past. Misunderstanding of the past, however, presents the opportunity for artistic re-mediations, for reinvention of this somewhat lost and contested ‘historical’ identity into an artistic archive infinitely open to present interrogations. In that way, from archeology of the past the project turned into an archeology of the present focused on the complex encounters involved in the search of a country, a home and a new identity.