Artwork Description
Kate Rivers – Buffalo
Dimensions: 59 x 49″ framed
Year: 2023
Medium: clothing tags, book pages, and misc items glued to paper and stitched – mounted on canvas
My work is about memory: We save mementos of events we want to remember and attempt to document these memories we fear we might lose. When my mother, was suffering from cancer, she taped photos, cards, newspaper articles, and other ephemera on the walls of her condo. She began with one wall behind her favorite chair. During her treatment, she created wallscapes that calmed her and gave her pleasure. She was able to hold fast to memories that were quickly fading. By the time she died, there was ephemera attached from floor to ceiling on all of her walls. After she passed, I walked through those spaces and what I experienced transformed my work.
I work in two series, the Book and Nest Series. Both are about how we struggle with memory and loss. The idea that underlies this work is drawn from my lifelong love of books and the narratives they contain. In addition, this work starts from a place of found objects, and memories of the stories that inform me. In the Book Series I devour volumes in a literal and physical way, one that satisfies both the reader and artist, and allows me to give into my urge to destroy and compose something new from the remains. Kali, the master of death, time, and change, tearing things up to create anew. What we find meaningful personally in one moment shifts and changes. I hold onto my fears, hopes, and dreams.
“You remember too much,
my mother said to me recently.
Why hold onto all that? And I said,
Where can I put it down?”
– Anne Carson