Vestiges II

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Artist: Christine Aaron

Title: Vestiges II

Attribution: Vestiges II, 2019, Christine S. Aaron

Year: 2019

Materials: burnt drawing on handmade abaca paper, thread

Dimensions: 18 x 12 inches

Image Statement: My work investigates loss, memory and the fragility of the human condition: Absence and presence, the record of experience that remains invisible but indelible, how the whole is marked and repaired, yet remains intact. I create work to make visible what is intangible. Hand dyed and burnt paper become vehicles for content. I use materials and processes that are immediate and unpredictable, where traces of the hand remain. Dying and burning are inexact, and I lose much of what I started with, which begins the process of reclamation and repair. What is lost becomes as much a part of the piece as what is retained, and this history haunts the work. Loss impacts and lives within us, shapes and marks us. Burning, used throughout history to destroy and sanctify, evokes absence and presence, destruction and redemption. Burnt drawings reference language, mapping, and regeneration. The cast light and shadows convey the shifting relationship between perception, memory and experience and act as physical evidence of what is lost. Stitching evokes the repetitive action, especially by women, of making, repairing and connecting; a determined resilience to piece together meaning despite vulnerability, disappointment and inevitable decline.. These works are whole and beautiful despite and because of being fragile and pieced together. The hand wrought and manipulated materials validate the nature of being human: the imperfect, the intimate, the individual lived experience in the face of the unknown.