For the last several years my images have been concerned with the exploration of memory, as it evolves through time and as it manifests itself in the present moment. I am interested in time as both a linear and a non-linear experience, and in how our perception of time evolves from the relationships constructed by the mind of memory, present, and expectation. I am interested in the relationships between thought and event, and physical and emotional "reality" as they affect our perception of time inside and outside of our own sensory experience. A memory is transformed and reconfigured by linear time and its interaction with the "outside" events of one's life; and, paradoxically remains fixed within the psyche as the symbol of self within a single moment transcendent of time.

Using abstracted landscape and tree forms as a point of departure, I build my images in layers of form and color which could be called layers of time, symbolic of past, present, future, change and permanence. These layers are representative of personal experiences, both of actual physical places and of emotional places. Within these images, realistic description is juxtaposed with these textural veils, and with highly simplified forms representative of the momentary, pared-down essence of the experience.

I have chosen to focus on the tree as subject and symbol, contrasting the temporal and timeless qualities of the tree and the paradoxical aspects of its beauty within the same image. The tree symbolizes at the same time growth and transformation, permanence and endurance, strength and delicacy. While continuing to use transparent layers of information in the construction of these images, I am experimenting in some images with fragmentation of the picture plane into multiple panels, and with the effects of contrasting differing levels of realism and abstraction, and distance and proximity.

In my most recent work, which deals with memories of my mother and my present relationship with her memory, I am combining the tree form with abstraction from the body, using metaphoric relationships such as trunk/spine and roots/branches/veins. Many of these images also incorporate writing as an added visual and symbolic element.

I have also come to realize that the physical and emotional process of image- making, and the timeless moment in which my mind exists during that process, is equally essential to the meaning of the work. Each image is formed by reaction to itself as it emerges, and the physical layering or fragmentation of printed imagery echoes the layering of my mental memory-landscape, and the multiple levels of symbolism which the tree/body holds for me.

Details: Prints (framed and unframed) $100 - $625.

 

Click here to see more of Amy Dobrian's work.

 

Courage I

Courage II