We are surrounded by impermanence. Fleeting moments, shifting perspectives, and change all illuminate the fact that nothing in life is permanent. Daily and seasonal transitions, birth, growth and death all remind us of the inevitability of impermanence. Even the most seemingly eternal landscapes will eventually succumb to time. We are left with memories. Abstract and residual, our memories are a means by which we can honor the past and recall experiences, relationships and parts of our histories.
Oddly enough, painting feels permanent. It is a means of documentation that can be quick or slow, but one that seems durable and in some ways, timeless. An image left on a painted surface is the tangible result of working with a flexible and changing medium until the arrival of an end. It is a path that allows for a memory to be made into something more concrete than an idea.
Towers, walls, and pyramids of ice cubes in various states of melting are, of course, impermanent. These ice structures were designed to fail and simply melt, returning to a prior state. Cast against dark backgrounds and photographed in high contrast light, there is something beautiful about these ice structures. The images feel dramatic and historical. There is also an element of absurdity in the act of committing these images to painting; ice is simply a temporary state of water that is destined to not to last, but a painting of ice seems like it could.
