“...and she remained in his memory simply as the most plaintive and poignant of a line of ghosts.”
- Edith Wharton, from the The Age of Innocence

The love story that inspired this work happened to coincide at a time and circumstance where there is no public evidence that these two lovers and their affaire de coeur existed at all. But it did indeed exist. The anonymity is intentional – no names, no backstory between them beyond the inside references conveyed through their ephemera. The work, and they, simply exist in time, known only through theses bits of memories resurfacing as in a dream. The experience of creating this work remains as dialectically real and surreal as the entire experience that inspired it.

The physical mementos we hold on to from our former flames – letters, postcards, tickets, matchbooks, and others – are not the most reliable narrators. It is astonishing how unreliable and biased our memories can be when we rely on just the mere presence of these objects alone, suspended in the amber of an abandoned inbox or an old shoebox on the top shelf of a closet that sits for years unopened. In my recent hours-long stints of revisiting the contents of my own such-boxes, I was 24, 25, 26 again… vividly transported back to the apartments of my early adulthood recalling long-forgotten memories about my life – my ambitions, my dreams, my jobs, my exploits, my friends, my family, my anxieties, my fears, my deepest desires – and the lover with whom I shared all of the above and more.

your subtle repetition was presented at Bell Projects from March 1 - April 6, 2025 in “Girl Goo” guest curated by Kiera McIntosh.