Artist's Statement

Laurinda Stockwell

“Memory and history permeate the austere imagery of Laurinda Stockwell. Stockwell’s works are evocations of time. Her works record the natural world to create visual interpretations of the temporal world. A photographer who works with assemblage, she collects feathers, branches and natural history illustrations, juxtaposing the natural image with the second-hand, to make still-life photographs and assemblages with a subtle poignancy. Stockwell looks for significant objects, just as others search for significant form. She sees these assemblages as landscapes.

There is no clearly understood narrative in Stockwell’s works. The analogies which she draws among objects within a piece are evocative and associative-not at all literal. In these assemblages, she has honed her vocabulary into a significant language that is once nostalgic and historical, yet very contemporary. The works suggest the spiritual and the precious yet look as if made with little deliberate labor. Stockwell achieves succinct poetic form in these works.” ~ Alison Weld, New Jersey State Museum

I’ve been working on this series in fits and starts for almost 20 years but I consider it an on going project. It’s become a way of seeing as I collect objects specifically to photograph.

As I get older, time and memory have changed. I now sift through old letters, cards and collected objects to activate and encourage memory. My parents suffered severe memory loss before their recent deaths. That loss of memory was also a loss of who they were. Experience often defines who we are as well as who we will become.