Lauren Blankstein
My work expresses both a tethering to the past and a desire to be set free. I use the house form to represent “past” because I am interested in how spaces we inhabit, specifically the houses of our childhood, imprint on us. Houses are containers of memories, stories, people, materials and objects. I connect their architecture and contents to the layers within us. My paintings are constructions of intersecting shapes and colors. They are enmeshed structures that are imprecise and free from the confines of prescribed, formal edges. By scratching away at the surface of old photographs I create a visual representation of the erosion and distortion of memory.