Ten Xerox transfers by Natalie Bradford

I explore the ideas of memory, absence, mortality, and the passage of time in my prints. Our memories are naturally inconsistent and fleeting; It’s impossible to remember everything in our lives clearly, especially as we age. Every time we recall a moment in time, the memory of that moment loses its “truth” as our brains start to fill in the blanks with other memories or narratives that aren’t consistent with what really happened.

My artistic process starts with identifying my sources; I pull my inspiration from family photo albums dating back to the 1950s and 60s. I make photocopies of the pictures and physically cut out pieces of the image to strip it of its details, which speaks to absence, the mortality of people/places, and the fleetingness of memories. I end my process by transferring the scraps onto a new piece of paper using lacquer thinner, a photo transfer chemical. By doing this process, my prints become immensely abstracted from their original start as a photograph, which show the inconsistent and ephemeral side of our memories.