I have a long term interest in memory, and with that, theories around how memories are stored, and over time how they can be changed by a variety of environmental factors. With my move to New York, and the ongoing homesickness I have felt for Hong Kong I have been digging back through images from my years there and reworking them into abstracts of colour and shape.
This is partly based on the theory that a memory is changed by the simple act of remembering. This theory posits that memory works similar to a .jpeg image file. Each time you open a .jpeg the algorithm alters the file by “placing” detail into the compressed image file, and then, when closing it, compressing discards information. But not the same information each time. A sequence of opening and closing the image/memory will produce changes, and eventually, given enough time and opening/closing cycles a noticeable distortion, and finally, an uninterpretable image/memory.
These images reference that change taking place, but there is also an attempt to find a beauty in the idea of impermanence, what I have left behind, knowing that, as the saying goes, “No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it is not the same river and he is not the same man”.
