Anna Halliwell Boyd: Forget Me Not (Really)

May 3-31, 2019
Anna Halliwell Boyd: Forget Me Not (Really)
Opening reception: Friday, May 3, 5:00-9:00 PM
Gallery hours: Monday-Friday, 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM. Please note, the Emporium is closed on Monday, May 27, for the holiday.

Artist Statement:
My thesis work explores lost connections and the distortion of my personal history. Personal photographs and old school notes are some of the visible remains of relationships I have made in my lifetime. These photographs display specific moments with other people, many of whom are no longer in my life. By distorting the individuals and places pictured, I am regarding the erosion of these memories and addressing the disconnect from that moment to present day. The original analog photographs are sanded, erased, and painted on with the intent of creating separation between the figures and the viewer, just as they are now separated from me.

In the other series of my thesis, I am redacting details from my old school notes. The blank spaces I have created in them serve as lapses in memory. These gaps abstract the stories and situations to make them unrecognizable while still hinting at the author’s intent through the handwriting and remaining content. I also produce digitized versions of these notes on Instagram, so that viewers are able to see these obsolete documents on the very device that replaced them – the cell phone.

Forget Me Not (Really) is about the ghosts of our pasts that follow us into the present– no matter how much time has gone by, and no matter how much we may want to forget.

Bio:
Anna Halliwell Boyd is a mixed media artist and arts educator from Oak Ridge, Tennessee. She earned her MFA in Painting from Savannah College of Art and Design in 2018 and her Masters in Teacher Education from The University of Tennessee Knoxville 2013. Her BFA in the 2D Arts with a concentration in Drawing was earned at The University of Tennessee Knoxville in 2008. During her undergraduate years and first graduate program, she made watercolors, ceramic sculptures, oil paintings, and drawings that alluded to the bizarre, sad nature of witnessing the decay of her Grandmother’s mind with Alzheimer’s. Her recent works use mixed medias to convey themes of loss and how the past is recollected. The photographs she took growing up are often resurrected in her work to convey lost connections with others and the distorted nature of memory. Boyd is currently an adjunct instructor at several institutions and exhibiting work from her MFA thesis.

Website: www.annahalliwellboyd.com
Instagram: @annahalliwellboyd.art & @annahalliwellboyd
Email: anna.halliwell.boyd@gmail.com

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