Shelley Lawrence Kirkwood

 Premonitions

In the summer of 2021, I took part in an art residency on Crete located in a remote village perched on a windblown mountainside. I could see the sea miles below from my bedroom window. Cicadas chirped through the day, and the sun was blazing hot by mid morning. In the shade of the early afternoon, I foraged for flowers which I then quickly pulverized with a stone mortar and pestle in my small apartment. At night, I coated papers with these vibrant liquid pigments, and then stashed them away. I left the residency not knowing if I had really accomplished anything.

Later that year, in the darkest part of winter, I decided to make negatives the iPhone shots I had taken of my fellow artists from the residency. It had been an important moment for me, socializing after the pandemic, and being away from my children for the first time in many years. The exposures took weeks, but the images of these memorable moments reflected the loose hold we have on memory itself. Anythotyles —like memories — fade with time, so I resolved to preserve the exposures by scanning them and producing digital prints.

In the spring, I began collecting flowers from the meadows near my home in New England, and from my own garden. I experimented using one flower emulsion to create an image of another. A peony created with a pigment made of irises was the first of these trials. The process has been a continuation of themes that have interested me for many years: the interconnectedness of memory, the illusory nature of time, and the places that have become a part of who I am.