Personal Mythology

I aim to represent three of my lifelong interests: art, genealogy, and my, now realized, childhood dream of living in Paris, the home of most of my paternal ancestors. The choices our predecessors make, whether as individuals, family members, or fellow countrymen shape our current society, personal identity, and connection to each other, for better and worse, in ways that are not always evident upon initial observation. I have found that the present is in direct conversation with the past, and to contextualize our ‘here and now’, one must plunge into and explore the people and events from before us and meet them where they were. These collages are the visual convergence of my personal search for the histories, choices, and faces of my ancestors and their families; who all lived in Paris before immigrating after the war; a tradition I now proudly follow, albeit in reverse. In honor of the choices and sacrifices they made to shape the starting circumstances of my life, I have brought them with me to the present, and preserved them in a way that even in death, their lives continue to ripple through future generations.