Painting in oils, I looked at manipulating the images taken from the photographic family album source material. I continued producing images on a small scale to retain the intimacy, but loosen up the painting style.

I wanted the paintings and their source photographs to be less recognisable, more generic, and to evoke memories rather than portray specific individuals. I looked at the work of Wilhelm Sasnal, and Miho Sato, especially the reduction in facial details or faces devoid of features. They allow space in their paintings for the viewer to fill in the missing details or narratives, drawing on their own personal histories. I considered the focus and depth in my paintings, in the way that a photographer would think about what was in focus, and what was blurred or in shadow in a photograph. I wanted to fade areas of the picture, as the memory blurs and fades. In this way the paintings can confuse the boundaries between private and public and represent the frozen moments of collective past and memories.

For my assessment piece I considered the way that photographs are seen and grouped together in the family album. The gathering of large numbers of photographs or paintings changes the visual impact and the affect of the display. I reflected on Francis Alys’ Saint Fabiola in the National Portrait Gallery. The intensity of the hundreds of images changed the space dramatically.  These paintings are not read individually, but as one entity. I have decided to display my work spaced individually around the space, they will then be able to be seen as moments or memories, that relate to each other, but are still seen as stand alone works. They will draw the eye from one to the next, as they are similar to each other in their scale and tone.