Time present and time
past
Are both perhaps present in time future,
And time future contained in time past.
If all time is eternally present
All time is unredeemable.
- from Burnt
Norton, T.S. Eliot
To document my daily commute to work, I take cell-phone
photographs from the platform of the subway.
Often, these images show the continual decay of the stations, the stages
of damages underneath fresh coats of paints, and the marks left by the workers
signaling their tasks. Coincidentally,
years earlier my mother was keeping a journal, in the form of photographic
slides, of her walks to and from school, of the sights she saw, the people she
encountered, when she was a student in Paris. Afterwards, as my mother focused on her
career, the slides languished in a drawer and were never shown.
The artworks in this on-going series, Subway/Paris, close
the distance in time and localities and combine both of our droning routines
and Sisyphean efforts. The involved
processes in the creation of the individual pieces further echo the repetitive
manner in which we live each day and strive to move forward.
ATYL 2012-2013