MEMORY PALACE: DRAWINGS

More than 2500 years ago, Simonides of Ceos, a Greek lyric poet, left a banquet just as the building collapsed. The dead were unrecognizable, but Simonides identified the bodies using a visual memory system of the banquet’s seating arrangement. Simonides later developed this into a mnemonic system known as the "memory palace"-- the use of spatial relationships to establish, order and recollect memorial content. I have created my own memory palace. The paintings serve as architectural markers, and large-scale ink drawings describe personal memories. 

My drawing process references memory's fading nature-- black and white ink lines marking the many layers of gray, a cacophony of scratch marks, floating objects, and ink wash.To form shapes, I lay an object or prepared silhouette on paper, cover it with spray paint, and remove it, creating an index--a ghost suggestion--of what was once there. I transfer text, photocopied images, and collage papers onto the drawing. With whiteout and ink, I block out words and images, obscuring the original meaning and leaving only a trace of a no longer legible message.