“I think this man is suffering from memories.”

 

―Freud, Sigmund

 

 

In Marcel Proust’s “In search of Lost Time”, he depicts a scenario where the scent of a madeleine and tea with his grandma evoked ‘involuntary memory’. I quickly realised whilst reading that I had always painted the motif of European decorative tiles in my artwork due to the nostalgia they gave me of my upbringings in Spain. These tiles became my madeleine and tea. Experimenting with screen-printing within my paintings allows for machine like production and a form of repetition that parallels the layers of memory. I explore how memory develops to mean something different as we age. Reusing old materials from childhood (such as photography or even childhood drawings and short written stories) created a form of perceiving how wonderful lack of concern and innocence of youth is. Blissful ignorance that doesn’t last, as one ages their relationship with memory will change and experiences in the wider world cause increased fear.

 

 

The contents of my paintings are always figurative and often self-portraiture, creating a direct link to the self. I wanted to combine methods of artwork that felt childlike with traditional painting through their materiality, so the plastic mosaic tiles from Reading’s local arts and crafts shops felt perfect as an addition to a traditional portrait. The use of negative space within self-portraiture to explore the notions of false memory, or constructed memory.