In a seaside village in Bulgaria, several years ago, I was trying to remain inconspicuous while I rooted through a dumpster overflowing with someone's personal possessions. The photographs that I recovered that day became the pieces of a puzzle that told the story of a woman's life in communist Europe. I was awkward in my solitude in that place, but I found comfort in the intimate act of drawing and painting from those elegant images.

Recently, I have revisited the practice of working from old photographs in response to the bereavement brought on by the loss of my father and my grandmother. In particular, pictures taken between the World Wars show me the moment in time that saw these individuals in their youth. This connection with a past is to some degree superficial. It is not a real memory, but the longing for one. Yet, the paintings are not meant to be nostalgic. They are an attempt to make a personal bond with the past by looking carefully at an image of humble expression.

Through sanded layers of paper, paint, and graphite, I attempt to create a space that possesses the serenity, sadness, and hope that I perceive in the figures. The flat, reflective areas created by soft pencil are reminiscent of the metallic physicality of the photograph itself. My surface building process employs the use of various materials and many different temperaments. This often results in a complexity of visual texture.