My practice underlines the confusion and difficulty of trying to understand who we are, where we come from and our place in the world.

I interrogate the dichotomy of permanence and impermanence in our human narratives. Using nostalgic found objects, I create connections to the power of the past, portals which bring meaning to the present and help us understand our yearning for things which are lost.

What are the traces we all leave behind?
What alchemy is at work when traces intertwine and return to us?
How does our own lifeline connect with the past?
How does understanding time help us look forward?
My fear of letting things from the past deteriorate and be forgotten has driven me to create ephemeral artworks taking the past into the future.

My work symbolises the fragility of human memories, the shattering and falling away of clarity, the twist and turns that are unexplained in our minds, the things we choose to hold onto and the things we lose…

My poetry explores obscuring and over-writing to create layers that swallow each other. Each layer hides something important, but like the past, cannot to be fully understood. My poetry is threaded through the work, written, plastered over, and then re-written. Motifs appear within my poetry: letters unsent, emotions uncommunicated, places aching to be revisited. Underlining mysteries which remain unresolved and the beauty of decay and time passing.

Instagram: @madelinefineart