Susan Stewart states: “We do not need or desire souvenirs of events that are repeatable. Rather

we need and desire souvenirs of events that are reportable, events whose materiality has

escaped us, events that thereby exist only through the invention of narrative. Through narrative

the souvenir substitutes a context of perpetual consumption for its context of origin.”

The paintings are based on the microscopic photographs of the Italian Baroque master Titian’s

paintings, which were originally produced for technical analysis and conservation purposes.

Upon seeing his work I imagined that the oils were flowing in the Italian’s veins, whereas I felt

that I did not. My paintings were produced after the fact, feeling as though I came to the party a

little too late, yet out of desire to interiorize the material of oil painting, the Western canon. For

someone who was grappling with the general sense of loss of authenticity in culture, the layers of

paint chips in the photos were like the remnants of the body of the authentic painting, or like the

holy relics of events from the life of Christ, such as the Veronica’s cloth. But it was my recognition

that I was not part of the legacy that prompted me to make the paintings, using the photos as both

souvenir of my misidentification with the Western master and sign of lack or loss. The paintings

reflect my ambivalence towards the notions of originality, of painting and "Pictures," and my

fascination with the sense of compression of narrative and time in the photographs: those of

biblical constructions, of Titian, and of our gaze.