Unremembering

To me, art is no longer about memories, but narratives.

Art often captures the essence of experience — to encapsulate a memory or express an otherwise inexpressible feeling. 

Yet, as an artist navigating university party culture, I often find myself waking up unremembering the night before — disillusioned in post-inebriation, with a disposable film camera as the only record of the night prior. 

In my painting practice, I am drawn to depict not what I remember, but what is centric to my current disposition — connection. To me, art is no longer about memories, but narratives. Sharing fragments of recollections with friends in subsequent days, filling each other in on the embarrassing, naughty, fraternal events transpiring outside and around the memories captured. The relationships and connections evolved in these communal acts of unremembering hold us bound together in a mutual blackmail (eliciting a look of horror whenever they begin to say “Remember when you…?”). 

In this on-going series, I recreate film pictures taken on a night out in oil paint, in an act of unremembering and then remembering. Loose brushstrokes and a darker colour palette conveys the vignette of these unremembered images. There is a certain softness in these memories that could vaporise in any moment, its ephemerality reflected in the haziness of my paintings. I have just completed a painting depicting myself passed out on my friend's shoulder at an Industry Night — the formal attire contrasting the kick-ons bar setting. 

So the last question that remains is: who was that man that carried me to kick-ons? 

Photographer: Nhi Lu