I create works that examine how memories are constructed.
Snapshots of vacation spots, spring break,
amusement parks, parades, beauty pageants, the circus, and other
fantastical guilty pleasures are translated into detailed line drawings
and then overlaid to create semi-abstract compositions. These new
images display a somewhat mysterious yet subtlety familiar space that
holds a collision of diluted symbolism and traces of nostalgia. The
source photographs, selected from my sizable archive, are the products
from the attempts to record an experience, creating a catalyst for
recall. However, the recollection in our mind is unique. My artistic
process is representative of the phases I believe are used to develop
these memories: the perception manufactured from expectation, the
details recorded from experience, and the incompletely distinct
recollection. The integrated result that becomes our memory is
influenced and over written by different bits of information created
from each of these steps. My works leverage this internal process
using visual insinuation to simultaneously present the individually
meaningful moment and the universally shared familiar experience.
For more information, please visit www.leegainer.com.