Remembering While Forgetting
Remembering While Forgetting is inspired by my formative experience of learning English as a second language in post-communist Bulgaria. The paintings in this project consist of trompe l’oeil copies of early childhood scribbles superimposed against images of a mouth shaping itself to perform sounds. By copying scribbles, I look to embrace the in-between nature of early childhood marks: drawing as writing and writing as drawing, and to highlight the moment of flux that exists before we become set into a sense of self and place. The copy nature of the paintings is revealed only up close and brings up associations to learning via mimicry. The images of mouths in the paintings are appropriated from a Texas elementary schoolbook showcasing instructions on how to pronounce the alphabet. Situating the mouth as a site of transformation, this work dwells on the tension between verbal and written expressions of language when the body becomes a register for assimilation and resistance to a new system.
