Unfixed Memories

​I’ve been working on a new series of paintings titled Unfixed Memories. These pieces explore how memory and perception shift and dissolve, much like the blur of wings in flight. Many of the works feature white butterflies against black backgrounds—sacred messengers, carriers of souls, and symbols of transformation.
 
The series began with memories of my mother’s love of butterflies—her sense of wonder in their presence—and how those moments have taken on new meaning over time. Some of the paintings are also inspired by the ocean and rainforest landscapes of Costa Rica, where I once traveled with my parents. Boats, tides, and flickering light surface as recurring motifs of passage, loss, and interconnectedness.
 

I don’t always know why I make the art that I make. Usually, I get a vision of what wants to come through me, and I follow it. There’s often a backlog of images waiting—like planes on a runway—and sometimes I have to let some go.
 
Recently, I listened to a lecture on the Surrealist and Dada movements and was reminded that their work emerged directly from the devastation of World War I. Many of those artists had lived through the carnage and became disillusioned with the so-called rationalism that had justified it. Dada, with its anti-art stance, rejected those broken values, while Surrealism turned inward, seeking positive expression by liberating the subconscious mind.
 
It made me wonder how the world’s current turmoil shapes my own work—whether the terribleness of everything is driving me toward gentler subjects, or simply deeper inside. Perhaps both. For now, I find refuge, or at least respite, in the act of making.
Unfixed Memories is an attempt to hold what can’t be held—to paint the spaces between remembering and imagining, between what was and what we dream it to have been.