boltanski

"i thinkwe all have somebody who is dead inside of us. A dead child. I remember the little Christian who is dead inside of me"
~~these are the words spoken by the artist christian boltanski that are so relevant to me and my own work........ In my most recent body of work, i deal with my own childhood, through representations, like glimmers, of collected images. my photographic endeavors aspire to re- present, as boltanski does in so many of his photographs, something from the past and bring it into the present. A series of photographs that i select appear, as in a dream that jumps from one scene to the next, like a flashback of my past. it is as if i wish to live and photograph through my younger self......
contrary to many of boltanski's works though, my presentation is more arbitrary. there is no real single mood or emotion seen in the cluster of photographs, no organization. boltanski uses photographs in a theartrical way to evoke emotion; his installations draw on pathos in a universal manner. the images of the children of the holocaust for example, illuminated by strings of light bulbs, serve as a memorial to the ghosts of the children. the term "momento mori" has often been used to describe his work, which immediately creates an air of sadness for me without even having to look at the work. by contrast, my work is really only sad for me because i am no longer that person who originally took those photographs.
(to be continued.....)