Jody Chapel
artful pursuits
  • About
  • Artwork
    • Space of a Place
    • Westish Series
    • Passage Series
    • Ripple Effect/Recurrent Series
    • Encaustic Paintings
    • Re-Collections Series
    • Exhibit Photographs
    • Commercial Design
    • Printmaking
    • 3D
    • Misc
    • Oddities and Curiosities
    • Descanso Project
  • Digital Journal Projects
    • Introduction
    • Art as Experience >
      • The Human Experience
      • The Artist and New Forms of Media
      • Video and Interactive Installations
      • Confronting Nature
      • Contemporary Icelandic Art: Hallgriskirkja church
      • Contemporary Icelandic Art: Hafnarhús
      • Confronting People
      • Nouvelles vagues
      • Last Words
    • A Natural History of Memory Site

Re-Collections Series

The past is carried into the present so as to expand and deepen the content of the latter.
— John Dewey
A Natural History of Memoryl Journal Site

Artist Statement for Re-Collections

Re-Collections is about time and memory. I have been intrigued by the idea of time—not a linear and sequential duration, but something that signifies a time lapse, an indeterminate moment in which everything happens. In this series, I am pulling out individual frames from old family videos that have been distorted by age and reduplication. I paint these stills as a representation of a memory. Memories seem similar to a series of captured stills, fading and distorting with time as the mind edits and modifies, accentuating particular details over others and obliterating some altogether. In some chosen stills, the "film" has appeared scorched by the projector, or as a temporary glitch captured between frames.  In my previous series of paintings, Ripple Effect and Recurrent, I attempted to capture and emphasize the essence of transient moments. In Re-Collections I am expressing the process of memory as being both fixed, or associated to a particular time, and also fluid and changing like the psychological process of remembering. I collect and re-contextualize these specimens of memory to help me understand the human experience and give meaning to my life.

For more on my inspirations and process, please visit my Re-Collections digital journal at anaturalhistoryofmemory.weebly.com

All images are oil on wood panels, painted using a glazing process in which many thin layers build to create the final effect. Currently, the paintings are not for sale.

Re-Collections Opening Reception

Opening night at Converge Denver, 3327 Brighton Blvd. in Denver. 
Above and below: I am trying to emphasize the fluidity of memory by integrating a video component to, and in addition to, the paintings.  I have been experimenting with a variety of methods to accomplish this. Using video editing software that allows me to play multiple videos at once and to juxtapose and overlap images, both still and moving, I hope to visually represent the ever changing pictures in our minds. Above is a wall projection and below is a photograph of one of my paintings superimposed with a movie clip.
Above: Internal Representation, digital video. 

©2013 Jody Chapel, All Rights Reserved
jodybchapel@gmail.com