« I base my work around what I like to call collections or ‘families’. The most important thing for what I collect is that it needs to be portable. Some of the collections are ‘virtual’ because they are not physical things that can be transported, such as words and scents which I transport metaphorically in my head. I like in-between moments, fragments that only become valuable in a specific context. I collect certain sentences and words for instance because relationships live from a shared language or codes. What I am physically unable to take with me, I will paint.

The nature of my paintings makes them very easy to transport, not only because they are painted on paper, which makes them lighter and more ephemeral than canvas, but also because of their almost postcard-like size. Their size also makes the experience when looking at them personal and almost intimate. They are nearly pocket-sized, small enough so you could have them on you at any time. Similar to a photograph of their loved ones people used to have in their wallet, so they could show strangers what their family looked like when they were not at home. Sometimes I lose one. I count them very regularly to see if there are all still there and sometimes I forget that I had one. They very often feel like they could only exist in the form of an entity. The collections get bigger throughout time and with that comes the idea of passing through. I think that we live in a world where people have become a lot more mobile and some things can travel with you anywhere, like your language, your identity, the memories in your head but there are other things that you can not take with you like a scent or a human being.

I am interested in the idea that objects can act as an analog for memory. Moreover what role they play in an age of migration, globalization, exile, and displacement. We melt into different contexts, there is a constant movement in almost everything around us, which led me to the idea of context, bringing something out of its usual context and back into another context. What do you choose to keep, remember, and collect? What are the consequences of transportation and what is the difference between a transformation and a translation? What if you could collect people or moments? »