El Sofa de mi Abuela, 2023

This inkjet print (Edition of 3 + 2AP) is from my series Mining For Some Sort of Continuity. A study of the fleeting nature of memories, this series focuses on how personal archives construct a mobile, personal, and ephemeral archive that is funda...

This inkjet print (Edition of 3 + 2AP) is from my series Mining For Some Sort of Continuity. A study of the fleeting nature of memories, this series focuses on how personal archives construct a mobile, personal, and ephemeral archive that is fundamental to the construction of diasporic identities. This work centers around my grandmother’s floral-patterned couch. The piece is an acrylic transfer on corroded copper, depicting my parents seated on the couch in their 20s, back when they were dating. At one point in my childhood, my entire family moved into my grandmother’s apartment, and this couch became part of countless memories. A beautiful explosion of cyan from the corroded patina bleed through the image, extending from the middle out towards the edges of the frame, giving the impression of seeing a great lake from the sky. Although I hadn’t thought of it in years, seeing a photo of the couch instantly brought those memories flooding back. I recall sitting there with my brother, sorting through my grandmother’s match collection, which she kept in a glass container on the coffee table. I remember tiptoeing around it as my uncle dozed off after our weekly Tuesday dinners, with my brother and me giggling at how he could sleep with his eyes wide open. Since creating this piece, I find myself thinking of those years with my grandmother whenever I see a floral-patterned couch on the street, waiting to be discarded or perhaps taken into a new home.