Evidence of Unknown Markers in Time

An ongoing series dealing with time, memory, and subjectivity.

Tarkovsky wrote that “Time is a state. It is the flame in which lives the salamander of the soul of man. Time and memory are merged into each other, they are two sides of the same coin.” In ancient folklore, it was believed that the salamander could live in fire. The salamander can also grow back its lost tail – like our memories that replace the passage of time when the two merge.

Evidence of Unknown Markers in time explores the relationship of photography to time’s passage. The round format of these photographs creates not a window – but a portal, which is meant to conjure the vignetted way that memories often appear to me. This work started in 2008 and is ongoing, made through careful culling of hundreds of negatives and many years of lived experience. It is a kind of rumination on the surreal quality of the passage of time and remembrance. A memory is like a dream – quite present in our mind's eye, and yet completely illusive. Memories are altered every time we recall them and are deeply affected by our current state of being. The photographic image is like a scrim that floats between the past, the present, and our subjectivity.