Because I Live looks toward images of Justin A. Carney’s late grandmother from his family album to question how one’s relationship to photographs change after the death of a loved one, and to show the effects of forgetting. When looking at images of her, there is an opposition of a closeness within his mind and a distance within his heart. Although the photograph is a visual representation of her, there is a disconnect between image, memory, and feeling. The photograph exists within a limbo of familiarity and unfamiliarity; it is of his grandmother, but it is not her.

Because I Live visualizes these feelings of disconnection, forgetting, and grief by using photography, sanding with sandpaper, incomplete photo transfers, and layering with transparency paper. Carney shares this work to show that lives are knotted together beyond photography and beyond memory; there exists a spiritual connection – when one passes, the Spirit does not disappear, it continues everywhere and in everything. The ones we love never truly leave us and we never truly forget. Even when a photograph becomes a foreign object, the connection does not fade. Death is not the end.

www.jacarneyphoto.com

@joule_zei

Guichelaar Gallery

Opening: March 1st 2024 6-10pm