Truth In Memory – Photographs by Lauren Whitacre
Melt showcases artists working in the realm of the in-between. The in-between relies on
objects and sensations to unpack our understanding of home. Located somewhere between
documentary and fiction, Lauren Whitacre’s images hint at the relationship between
generations of women. Specifically, Whitacre explores her own relationship with her mother
by means of constructed joint memories. These aim at truth, pointing to the disconnect we
face as we age. Whitacre’s work is grounding through imagery that calls the viewer into
presentness. Style blurs with experience, allowing memory to become a destination.
A theme in Whitacre’s work reveals home spaces intermingled with family video footage. In a
collage of 35mm film, these scenes are layered alongside stills of dolls and makeup. It is the
visibility of the artist’s hand in the act of layering that creates a discourse about intimacy as
an action rather than just a feeling. As shadows from one space intrude on a memory
captured from another space and time, these shadows become blurred and elusive. Interiors
become hard to discern from exteriors and time of day escapes definition. Lauren’s physical
manipulation of two photographs into one is a tool for creating a new, intimate place between
generations. This process makes time not only transient but elusive and forces the viewer to
question the importance of the now while the past takes on a new form of otherness that
cannot be ignored. The spaces created are ambiguous and feel more fleeting rather than
concrete memories.
Through Whitacre’s non-linear collage work, viewers are prompted to question our actual
versus our learned experiences. As people, we are all children of other individuals. While we
may have very different experiences and views from that of our parents, do we as children
carry the history of our parents and is it our responsibility to learn that history? How
drastically different is our current world from that of those before us? Where is our common
ground across generations? These are all questions that may never have answers, but
Whitacre’s work makes space for these questions to be asked. In opening this space,
generational understanding becomes less about linear-lineage and more about nuances of
the lived experience.
In works without figures, viewers can project themselves into spaces meant for humans. The
presence is felt through the objects Whitacre chooses to merge in her images such as home
scenes, clothing, makeup, etc. Lines are blurred between past and present and the
generational gap takes precedent. In her use of collage, Whitacre blurrs documentary with
fiction. Using historical imagery in tandem with present photographs forces what was once
documentation to evolve into a narrative of the mother daughter relationship in harmony and
in tension. The subjects, while related, are forced to learn their own truths and identities. The
work asks viewers to join Whitacre in questioning how we navigate our perception of self and
the life that happens outside of the frame as we develop our identities as daughters and as
women.
Identifying an experience can come down to how time has been interrupted and processed
after the fact. The photographs in this series are less reactive to important historical events
yet show awareness of them. Feelings of reemergence occur in Whitacre’s images in which
she shares a space with her mother’s memories and her own anxious self-regard.
The images are not only intimate but soothing and haunting as well. Recognizing a familial
setting draws the viewer into the comfort of a home space while the overbearing feeling of
absence prompted by missing figurative forms and looming shadows, which leaves one
feeling removed from any concrete moment in time. In looking at Whitacre’s past work, I am
drawn to an image which displays a homespace involving a plump couch, lampshade, and
wooden table mostly in view. The photograph is interrupted by a harsh geometrical shadow
that slices the image at a diagonal removing any context of the room it shares a space with.
The force of the diagonal shadow places the viewer in the scene as a witness to the
disruption. Soft family room furniture takes on an emptiness and distance as the rest of the
scene is obliterated. It is unclear what time of day it is. The windows in the photograph
project a lightness that feels at war with the heavy black. This odd juxtaposition of familiar
space peeking out from the shadow suggests we are always in an act of witnessing
concreteness giving way to fiction. Whitacre captures the experience of reflecting and its
potent ability to retrieve emotion. The spaces are unrecognizable but of a brand that is
indebted to themes of female maturation and matriarchy.
The tensions of generations, the bond of mothers and daughters, and the relinquishing of
uncertainty of what this all means speak to the complexity of gaining life experience while
trying to understand one’s roots. The lack of resolution in Whitacre’s work feels both daunting
and appropriate. Our human nature wants resolution, but life is far messier than a single
history. Through photography, Lauren pushes these boundaries to expose the gray area of
becoming. We are perpetually in a state of becoming, and it is this “becoming” that evades
any concreteness in time. As we experience the world around us, learn histories from our
loved ones, and create new relationships with spaces and people, we form hybridized and
ever-shifting identities. The luxury of recalling another’s history and forming a relationship to
our own stems from the human desire to be connected, to be seen by another. Whitacre’s
work realizes conversations between past and present experiences and exposes moments
of transience as we choose to keep or refuse external identities as parts of ourselves.
Melt, curated by Camile Messerley, opens on May 31st at Charlotte Street’s La Esquina
Gallery and runs through June 28th. This will be the last exhibition to open at the La Esquina
space before its closure. This essay is the second in a series commissioned by Messerley
for Melt.