Freya Picciotto

Political Science major, Studio Art minor

I am a painter and printmaker grappling with memory and impermanence through a practice of revisitation. My process continuously builds on and alters images in the hopes of giving shape to a memory that is just out of reach. In a broad sense of the word, I work in collage — print, glazes, fabric, and imagery build upon each other as a way to seek continuity in a sea of fragmented moments. This practice of layering both documents the progression of time and blurs any sense of it, shifting details in and out of focus. My process is in some ways obsessive, and in other ways a release of control. I return to a photograph, or work, or moment again and again, hoping to make sense of an elusive past, while simultaneously recognizing that no moment can be replicated. I create in pursuit of the unattainable, and by doing so am freed of any aspiration to perfectly echo a memory’s experience. 

if only for a second

oil on canvas, screenprint on fabric, photograph

Jewett Art Gallery and Jewett Sculpture Court

Inspired by an attempt to recall past experiences through photographs, if only for a second contends with the fugitivity of moments. As precious as any given moment may feel, each exists for just an instant — ephemeral, like a wave barely hitting the shore before it is replaced by the next. Working through photographs that bring my distant memories to the surface, this project negotiates with the space where reality and memory meet. It is the acknowledgement that a moment passed cannot be brought back, while also a test of memory’s limits.

I subject my work to continuous alteration, piecing it together over numerous weeks and revisiting it many times. Built through layers of oil glazes on canvas, screenprint, and silk, this project is as much the process as it is the product. I begin with a photograph that transports me to another place or moment in time, typically one that I have taken, then consider that image through many different lenses. Referencing photographs, my own memory, video footage, and, eventually, past paintings of the initial images, I constantly readdress both the source and the work as it exists in progress. Each visit to the studio is an attempt to finally reach a conclusion, but ends instead with the acceptance that replicating an experience or the feeling it brings about is an impossible task. In an effort to understand the unraveling of memory, my work collapses moments upon themselves. This project is not about one moment nor one memory, but instead the inescapable entanglement of all that we hope to hold on to.

the circle game

linocut on paper with wood frame

Jewett Sculpture Court

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