WATERMARKS: Resonant Absences in Painting and Memory

This paper is about memory and about narrative, both of which are concerned with what is missing. It explores the ways that the events in our individual lives, our collective lives, become history and narrative. The paper considers writer Thomas King’s work on narrative, and Walter Benjamin’s work on memory as theatre. Many of the stories included here are personal. They might have been heard at kitchen tables, or on the phone from family and friends. Some stories are ones which I can’t recall not knowing. The paper poses questions such as how these things become important to our present. Whether and why it is important to remember, and what constitutes authenticity in memory. The narrative structure of the paper reflects these concerns, by highlighting spaces and absences. To an extent the structure manifested itself organically, as a result of attempts to provide an honest articulation of the questions and ideas which have impacted on my material practice. This has proven to be a delicate task, as it attempts to speak to a material practice that is ongoing, constantly changing. There are overlaps in the form and content of each but there is also a space in between. My modus operandi resists full disclosure. I have this image of myself, like I am in the backyard, in the dirt, excavating some things burying others. From a certain vantage point all you see is the upturned soil following me, dirt under my nails.