My work reflects on the temporality of memory and how images and objects can pass down generational knowledge. I explore the visual meaning of people, spaces and objects that are central to my identity through translating family photographs into paintings. I build off of the work of my grandmother, Nina Ravenscroft Norton Smith, by painting photographs she took of my mother, Virginia Ravenscroft Smith Barrow, throughout my mother’s life. I engage with my grandmother’s photographic representations of moments in time, my mother’s retelling of these moments and my own childhood memories to visually combine the memories and lived experiences of three different generations of women.

My family is the strongest influence on my work, and this project expresses my gratitude for their unconditional love and giving. Working alongside other artists and sharing ideas is important to my creative practice and my friends constantly push and inspire me. Alice Neel and Milton Avery’s gestural work influences how I use color to create vibrant, intimate and reciprocal relationships between people and place. My process is also inspired by Emily St. John Mandel’s Sea of Tranquility and Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way as I think about art’s ability to immortalize fleeting moments and the rich meanings that images carry.

I balance abstraction and figuration to evoke these moments, rather than render them, and I use color and varied mark-making to create spaces that envelop the people in them. In the studio, I follow my intuition to make decisions, listening to the paintings and letting the body of work organically evolve. I draw from skills and knowledge I’ve developed in my time as an artist and continuously return to my grandmother’s photographs for guidance and inspiration. My paintings depict ordinary moments of stillness, where the safety and comfort of Home lulls the subjects to sleep. I invite my viewer to take part in these peaceful moments, offering a momentary reprise from the chaotic world outside of the frame.