My recent work explores themes of aging, loss and memory. I use transparent materials and layered images to mimic the jumbled collage of memory. Layered images are partially erased leaving only vestiges of what was once visible. This process traces the ghosts of people and places past.
Hauntingly familiar domestic spaces that we can’t quite place, in which fragmented apparitions of aging women are shrouded occur in the paintings and drawings. I choose photos of abandoned domestic spaces, and partially erase one structure by layering another over top to arrive at a composition. These Escher-like architectural spaces function as a metaphor for the mental and physical states of the figures trapped within. The aging women are based on my family members. In the oil paintings these women are painted on pieces of translucent cotton fabric collaged into the composition. The painting is then shrouded in white cotton fabric to mimic the fog of time that clouds memory. In the drawings mylar, translucent like skin, bears the history of each mark made upon it and is built up in layers just as memory is a compilation of experience.
In the installation, real and imaginary spatial relationships are blended with the whisper of a human presence at the centre. Dangling gossamer bags form traces of the family members, while overlaid white thread suspended in geometric patterns forms the vestiges of the domestic interior in which they are entwined.
Kim Leslie 