Memories can be elusive, especially when considered through the filter of time. Events, people, places and things that we think we well remember can actually be quite unclear and mutable as we attempt to assemble in our minds the images that make up a particular memory. In Absence, I explore this experience of the distant memory. These pieces, based on portraits of people who are anonymous to me, lose their resolution as one approaches them. Facial features that could seemingly be distinguished from afar become mere impressions as one comes up close. We are left feeling the absence of the people in the portraits, not unlike losing the ability to remember details as one grasps at a distant memory.

Each portrait in this series is comprised of a small stack of hand-punched paper. While one might be able to discern the face, or maybe just eyes or a nose from each piece in the stack, it only offers a small notion. Like the memories of a long lost childhood friend, it is the perspective of regarding all the vague notions taken together that gives the overall perception of the portrait.