THE MEMORIES OF STRANGERS

July 20th – November 20th

Several months ago I found an old photo album filled with dozens of dated photographs. Every photograph was carefully labeled with a year, location, and name of the people that posed for the camera. Most were taken between 1919, and 1926. Only the identity of the original owner was missing from the pages of the album, yet it was clear that whoever he or she was, they meant to remember every detail captured in those images.

I found it somewhat sad that 90 years later I held these memories captured on film with my hands, and none of the names, places or dates meant anything to me…. All that effort to remember, and in the end the album was left in an old barn with a five dollar price tag. There must have been a time when these moments where priceless to someone.

For the past few years I have been creating art with discarded papers, found objects and old images. I’ve created a new world with remnants of an old one. In these series of eight small paintings, I have taken the first step towards appropriating the memories of strangers and injecting them into the iconography of my work.

ALEJANDRO MAZON
January  2010