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*On display until March 2020 in the Pacific Northwest Viewing Drawers at Blue Sky Gallery

When my father passed away four years ago, it instantly became the defining absence in my life. I was 29 years old, and it hit deep and hard and redefined just about everything. 

In the intervening years, the loss turned into something softer and more retrospective. The initial sting gave way to a bittersweet nostalgia: the hospital beds and beeping machines drifted off into the gentle haze of time; foggy childhood memories resurfaced in conversations with my family. His absence was easier to handle, but his presence was harder to recall. 

The photographs in this series were all made on medium format color film in 2018 and explore this complicated intersection of memory and loss. The scenes, noticeable for the absence within, are stand-ins for locations and objects- pools, campgrounds, athletic courts, amusement parks, vending machines- that inhabited my childhood and defined my relationship with my father.