American Greetings, 2013
Graphite, resin and funerary ash on panel48 x 60 inches
L.M.R., 2013
Graphite, resin and funerary ashes on gessoed panel50 x 40 inches
Flowers, 2013
Graphite, resin and funerary ashes on gessoed panel50 x 40 inches
c. 1946, 2013
Graphite, resin and funerary ashes on gessoed panel30 x 36 inches
Scarecrow, 2013
Graphite, resin and funerary ashes on gessoed panel30 x 20 inches
Carbon Monoxide, 2013
Graphite, resin and funerary ashes on gessoed panel20 x 16 inches
Cracked Vase, 2013
Graphite, resin and funerary ashes on gessoed panel20 x 16 inches
Phillip Morris & Co. Ltd, 2013
Graphite, resin and funerary ash on panel12 x 9 inches
Tools, 2013
Graphite, resin and funerary ash on panel12 x 54 inches
Ashes, 2013
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Ashes
After my mother died I moved around a lot. Her cremated remains and her parents’ ashes came with me wherever I went, but there was never a place of significance to spread them or lay them to rest.
The disquiet followed me for years. I have a daughter. Would she inherit this? I didn’t want that.
I decided to embed their ashes in photographic images of their now-absent bodies, memories, and possessions. Their ashes could be scraped or sifted to a fine powder. There were bone fragments that scratched the screens. The ashes were mixed with a resin and powdered graphite—the same graphite used in the earlier drawings. Pure carbon mixed with ashes.
This was the right resting place, burying them in their representations—a snapshot, a photo ID, these markers we leave behind us. Our images are our ghosts.