reparations

I use liquid photo emulsion, graphite, charcoal and oil stick to blur the distinctions between medias. The major themes running through this series of images are memory, migration, globalization and the relationship between the African continent and the Diaspora. The sense of exile from "home" is prevalent in these images. Cartographic imagery is used to suggest travel and exile, both forced and voluntary, physical and metaphysical. I also use architectonic forms-aerial drawings of dwellings on the African continent as well as in the Caribbean - to evoke a sense of physical estrangement.


February 1 - 28, 2007

		Terry Boddie


	I use liquid photo emulsion, graphite, charcoal and oil stick to blur the distinctions between medias. The major themes running through this series of images are memory, migration, globalization and the relationship between the African continent and the Diaspora. The sense of exile from "home" is prevalent in these images. Cartographic imagery is used to suggest travel and exile, both forced and voluntary, physical and metaphysical. I also use architectonic forms-aerial drawings of dwellings on the African continent as well as in the Caribbean - to evoke a sense of physical estrangement.
	The photographic process is the grounding medium for my work. I use it in combination with other media such as oil, ink, charcoal and soil in order to blur the distinctions between them. I also wish to investigate and illustrate the relationship between two kinds of memory: the kind that is documented by mechanical recording devices, such as the camera, or preserved through historical materials such as maps, birth certificates, ledgers, and the kind of memory which resides in the recesses of the mind. This combination also alludes to the tension between states of being, between history and myth, and between remembering and forgetting. Photography captures time; it renders memory suspended, transfixed, and static. The process of mark making, by contrast, performs an act of imagination, or re-creation and activation in the present.
	The layering of images and media is also a central device in these works. It implies the accretion of history and memory, as well as the competition between "subjective" and "objective" voices for narrative space.
			artist Web page