Tobey Sharp Studio

Thinking about memory, and specifically thinking about how memory is all secondary, tertiary, and beyond stored data is something that has always been on my mind. It started when I read a statistic about if you think about a memory, you no longer have that original memory, but a memory of a memory. This compounds to infinity and thus what memories do I really have? Realistically and rationally I do not think that these remnants of memory are necessarily fake or lesser than what can only be thought of as a true memory, but it puts the scope of my life into perspective. 

My father has always been one to take photos. Not good ones, or ones he wants to share but things he wants suspended in time, so he can remember them perfectly. I looked through our immense catalogue of childhood photos and found a slew of ones where the fringes of the memory are in my mind but the moment has not lingered. There are elements and fragments that have stuck but not the moment of the photo. In no least do I remember any of the photos being taken. So, through these paintings I am in a way forging new memories through old ones. Taking what I do not have and forming it into a shape wholly unique and something that I will remember, unaided.