All I Got Was This Photo (Refuge) Painting

Memories are fragile things. The beginning of the story reveals a room of possessions. This chair has seen a variety of uses: bums, clothes, towel racks, history. The painting is a map of remembrances. These possessions, reminders of past journeys and experiences, are cheap trinkets that grow in value over time. This cushion has been on many a bed, sofas and chairs, chewed on by many pets. Nostalgia makes it invaluable. What experiences are embodied by these objects? How do these spaces become home when filled with them? My work, through the creation of handmade miniature dioramas, painting, and printmaking, speaks to the centrality of reminiscence and the passage of time as an accumulation of history. Works serve as a chronicle of personal journeys through time and place, while also paying tribute to intimate relationships that develop over the course of these passages. Thus, the concept of family, a vital element of my work, transcends blood. Moreover, I pay tribute to my Pakistani heritage by merging elements of the country’s material culture with personal imagery. Being of an interfaith, mixed-race background (Pakistani father, Chilean mother), my practice is grounded in home and belonging.