BIO

John Philip Welsh is an Artist from Austin, TX, currently living in Cleveland, OH. He received his BFA from the University of Texas at Austin. His previous work experience as a Private Investigator helped develop his technical skills with a camera, as well as cultivated his interest in photographic evidence. He is interested in issues of memory abstraction in the human mind and memory loss in technology. His work delineates metaphorical and literal aspects derived from artificial external technologies and natural internal technologies.

"Memory embodies both union and fragmentation...an individual’s memories extend far beyond the personal. They spread into an extended network of meanings that bring together      the personal with the familial, the cultural, the economic, the social, the historical”.
         - Annette Kuhn, Family Secrets: Acts of Memory and Imagination

STATEMENT

I explore the notion of mnemic image as the basis of human memory; where memory is not a part of thought, but rather an aspect of perception. I believe real images do not capture a complete memory, but that a collection of images build a sense perception or trace memory. Additionally, I am curious about the mind's ability to translate, migrate, recontextualize and re-signify natural memory. My exploration of memory storage and memory retrieval draws me to compare and contrast the likenesses found in digital memory and the photograph.

I manipulate and degrade images as I understand them in my own personal memory. I layer images that occur to me as I retrieve memories that are fond or traumatic to me. I attempt to create visual relationships between digital and analog technology; the result is a commentary on the discrepancy of physical evidence and how it relates to memory.