A Fuzzy Memory Entangled With What I’ll Never Forget

16 x 20 inches, Acrylic Paints & Markers on Canvas

When thinking about what my family once was vs what it has now become, has skewed my perception of reality. Living in a time where I feel my deceased dad’s presence is no longer with me is incredibly eerie and disheartening. My reasoning for depicting my family in nearly a comic book esque style is a testament to how grief impacts your memory and often skews your reality of things. In different places, times and instances that you can attach a memory of someone to, you may blend together past moments and final moments you’ve spent with that person. My painting is exactly that. I felt it fitting to render the subjects as somewhat realistic to not quite, to put forth that idea of an attachment to the past, a fictitious understanding of what has happened and where things are now. In this piece I’ve included a white rosary in my dad’s left hand and a brown catholic bracelet. On one of my dad’s final days alive a priest came in and did his “last rites.” He had placed this bracelet on my dad’s wrist, while he said a final prayer. My dad was later buried with the bracelet on his wrist and with a white rosary in his hands. This is meant to depict the mental image ingrained into my memory of the hands I held onto in some of his final days and how so many fond memories of my dad have been replaced with the trauma of losing him to Esophageal Cancer. I’ve painted the light in the eyes of the living members of my family and the lack of light in my dad’s eye to symbolize his departure from earth. In the window adjacent to my dad are two lingering autumn leaves. He passed away on December 2nd, 2022 and the leaves are meant to represent the date he died, along with how while seasons change and life goes on, that I’m still holding on to him. The absence of presents under the tree is to represent how pointless celebrating Christmas feels without his warm presence. The holidays always serve as a painful reminder of what happened.