Artists Statement 2014
Current research in neurobiology and psychology shows that the brain is a malleable organ; neural restructuring enables changes in the mind, and so changes in how life and existence are experienced by individuals
My current work focuses on memory, recollection, viewing the past from the present, the validity of memory, and the transient nature of being.
While my fascination still lies in the physical, biological, structural brain changes that happen throughout life, it is the feeling, the emotion that we experience through these changes that I aim to convey in my work. For me, there is a sense of mystery in how the physical translates into the realm of feeling, experience and emotion.
Mary Ainsworth speaks of the mother as the primary object of attachment, and other objects as being mother substitutes.[1]
The human need for attachment to the Other, that evolves through life, the basis of which is laid down in the memory of that first experience of attachment with mother-figure, is crucial to the on going ability to form secure relations, and emotional wellbeing.
This is why work relating to memory has become central to my practice, within my wider interest in the changeable nature of the brain and the mind. All change depends on learning, on memory. The most crucial learning involves these initial relationships that form a template for all others.
Central concepts in my current practice are summarized by Dyens:
“Emotion and Art are nothing other than memories. Living beings remember and that is how they are able consciously to exist in time and space………
Memories of pleasure, pain, sadness, joy are the common thread that unites all human beings.”[2]
Memory is,“[f]undamental to the emergence of both order and complexity: without memories a person cannot learn to adapt to the demands of the environment…or evaluate the conditions of his or her body….and is thereby unable to emerge as a conscious being.”[3]
[1] Ainsworth.M. Developmental Psychology.(1992) 28,759-775
[2] Dyens, Oliver. The sadness of the Machine(2001)p75 in Memory. Documents iOf contemporary Art. Ian Farr (editor)
[3] Dyens, Oliver. The sadness of the Machine2001. In memory. Documents of Contemporary art. Ian Farr (editor) p 75
Current research in neurobiology and psychology shows that the brain is a malleable organ; neural restructuring enables changes in the mind, and so changes in how life and existence are experienced by individuals
My current work focuses on memory, recollection, viewing the past from the present, the validity of memory, and the transient nature of being.
While my fascination still lies in the physical, biological, structural brain changes that happen throughout life, it is the feeling, the emotion that we experience through these changes that I aim to convey in my work. For me, there is a sense of mystery in how the physical translates into the realm of feeling, experience and emotion.
Mary Ainsworth speaks of the mother as the primary object of attachment, and other objects as being mother substitutes.[1]
The human need for attachment to the Other, that evolves through life, the basis of which is laid down in the memory of that first experience of attachment with mother-figure, is crucial to the on going ability to form secure relations, and emotional wellbeing.
This is why work relating to memory has become central to my practice, within my wider interest in the changeable nature of the brain and the mind. All change depends on learning, on memory. The most crucial learning involves these initial relationships that form a template for all others.
Central concepts in my current practice are summarized by Dyens:
“Emotion and Art are nothing other than memories. Living beings remember and that is how they are able consciously to exist in time and space………
Memories of pleasure, pain, sadness, joy are the common thread that unites all human beings.”[2]
Memory is,“[f]undamental to the emergence of both order and complexity: without memories a person cannot learn to adapt to the demands of the environment…or evaluate the conditions of his or her body….and is thereby unable to emerge as a conscious being.”[3]
[1] Ainsworth.M. Developmental Psychology.(1992) 28,759-775
[2] Dyens, Oliver. The sadness of the Machine(2001)p75 in Memory. Documents iOf contemporary Art. Ian Farr (editor)
[3] Dyens, Oliver. The sadness of the Machine2001. In memory. Documents of Contemporary art. Ian Farr (editor) p 75
