June 2005

These portraits are a gathering of people that I have known at some point of my life and have long since lost contact with. Eight likenesses dredged up without the help of photographs.

It is amazing how little is left when you really dig for detail -- a coat, a predilection for scarves or a sense that they were strong, or hopeful. There is an impulse to age them, bring them into the present, but at the same time there aren't nearly enough visual details left to span the gap from then to now. Their bodies are half-formed their faces caught at some approximate way-point. Interiors and backgrounds are also vaguely reconstructed -- maybe not that colour, or that wall but someone else's house . . . their kitchen I think. There are similarities to all the faces, a sameness that comes from remembering a face and approximating a likeness.

I exaggerate this "defect" of memory because the plainness of the characters and their minimal interiors speak to a more common experience. The effect is that these faces can be maluable. "She looks a bit like...." or, "I had a teacher that looked just like..." are the reactions I'm looking for.