Kristina
Smith

Love, Loss, and What Remains

The photographic series "Love and Loss," and corresponding installations for "Love, Loss and What Remains: The Things I Couldn't Say Aloud" are both based upon memories and experiences that I have gathered from relationships over the years. The images document a distance that has developed, a void. Through the photographs, drawings, and remnants, this distance is represented as a metaphor for what is missing. These images document emotions that have been felt, experiences that I have experienced, situations that I have witnessed, and all of the things that were left unsaid. These images evoke a sense of love and loss, showing how it can affect a space, and also how it can affect a figure in that space. nnIn this work I am trying to show what remains. What is left of the body, of your emotions, and your outlook on the world after a trauma or tragedy. What is left when the ground beneath you has been pulled out from under you and your sense of normalcy has subsided, having shaken you violently awake.nnI have also been interested in the body. How it works, what it looks like. How the body is this impressionable surface, much like our minds. That every event can leave an impression upon its facade. How the impressions may be internal or external, but either way, leave the body scarred. The clay and latex remnants are acting as metaphors for the body. They are what's left of the body and your innards after your sense of normalcy has been removed. The loss that I am trying to show in this work is not necessarily something tangible, but possibly intangible.nnRecently, I have become very interested in collections, archives and obsessions. For a lot of people, collecting is an impulse that begins in childhood. Collecting may be a passion or it may be impulsive, but then there's ordering, taxonomy, classification, putting things together in a way that makes sense. For me, documenting these relationships and experiences has become a collection in it's own right; A personal archive of sorts.nnBut then there are also obsessions. The color blue. The way the morning light dances on your bedroom walls. A relationship. And more specifically, how a relationship can go from healthy to unhealthy. How, when you love someone, somehow you can become entirely dependent upon this other person and lose sight of yourself. And how when you lose someone, nothing feels the same. Food loses its taste. Colors lose their appeal. And somehow you are unsure of how you can possibly go on. But somehow, you do. You are able to adapt and learn and grow. But this collection of memories and experiences never leaves. But rather stays with you and informs future collections and archives. It becomes an underlying connection. An invisible network of nerve endings that connects your past with your present.