“Matriarchy” is a series of four images dedicated to the women in my family. My grandmother raised two daughters, each of whom raised three daughters of their own.
When I was little, every day before school I would sit in my Mom’s bathroom and admire her red long hair, it was thick and shiny. She straightened it every morning because her “hair was wavy but not the pretty kind of wave” she would say.
In a time of isolation and transition, I found myself wanting to preserve this family history, these memories, these relationships and the bonds I share with these women. I became absorbed by the roles of the Matriarchy we all assembled, Grandmother, Mother, Daughter, Sister. I thought of these roles and which ones I inhabited, I collected each strand of my hair and reflected on this liminal stage of my life where I am a daughter, a sister but not yet a mother, if ever. As my cousins welcome daughters and my eldest sister edges closer to motherhood I find myself reflecting on those intimate moments we all shared, held together by our hair braided so tightly you’d get a headache. It was a time for closeness and now as I am alone and far from any of these women, my hair is a consistent connection and reminder of them and our Matriarchy.
For this work, I used scraps of wet hair from an anxiety-induced hair cut to create the letters on a sheet of glass. I would swirl and loop the hairs to create letterforms and then scanned them into the computer where I collaged old found family photos from my childhood together with the signifier and role of the women in each photo.
I am a multidisciplinary artist from Lawrence, Kansas. I view my practice as a contemporary way to reflect on the complexities of my own narratives. My current work focuses on family history, the collective memory of my siblings, cousins and me. I am at a point in my life where things are changing again. These works are moments or memories I wanted to preserve. I am desperately trying to document these relationships while they still resemble our childhood bonds.
