memory boxes

The Memory Box series follows in the artistic tradition of collections, constructions and assemblages. While I have long been an admirer of the work of Joseph Cornell and the surrealists (especially Duchamp), the inspiration for these illuminated pieces stems from a visit I made years ago to a cemetery in Isla Verde, Puerto Rico.

I saw row after row of limestone and granite mausoleums, with windows displaying photographs of the deceased, along with relics from their lives. They were macabre and fascinating. I discovered that these reliquaries are found throughout Latin America, in the tradition of medieval church crypts displaying the remains of saints.

Perhaps my training as a psychoanalyst has heightened my use of unconscious connections between the events and objects displayed in the memory boxes. The first work in the Memory Box series, Six, is about loss: "deep sixing," throwing overboard, getting rid of. The fragments of text and photos appear tossed into a wastepaper basket. Some of the others, like The Road to Thebes and The Hidden Meaning of Dreams, are more playful. All of the works share the concept of reassembling particular events, objects or psychological constellations. All of them are an attempt to express the art of nostalgia.