Lauren D'Ambrosio

Watch over me, Protect me

Both pieces in this diptych function as a fragment of my memory, representing different moments in the past and present, bringing these separate moments in time in conversation with each other. Each artwork acts as a vessel for my memories, therefore preserving them and removing their ability to change and decay overtime. My own comfort is addressed in the use of knitting as a protection between artwork and viewer. The act of covering and revealing each image or object acts as a barrier, allowing the viewer to gain some insight into the memory it holds while also allowing them to relate their own personal experiences to the work to actively fill in the gaps. Knitting has become a material exploration throughout the creation of my work that holds a lot of meaning. Being a practice that was taught to me by my mother, it ties in ideas of nostalgia, family, ritualism, comfort and warmth.Along the way, I began to explore the removal of this barrier, leaving some works seemingly unfinished and some completely rendered and uncovered. Towards the end of my research, I began to explore objecthood and installation as ways to create an immersive space of comfort, warmth and vulnerability. Artists like Diane Meyer inform my work through her use of embroidery as a tool for obscuring images and leaving parts unknown to the viewer. The memoir Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner was central to my research as I was able to relate my lived experiences so closely to the ones addressed in her writing and analyzing her ability to highlight the role that food plays in times of grief, and as a catalyst for memory and feelings of comfort.As a whole, my work functions as a way to honour and cherish a life lived that continues to live on through memory and the universality of loss and grief over the course of human existence. Throughout the semester, I found myself struggling against my own comfortability and vulnerability in the space of conversation of mortality. Exploring my lived experience of loss has allowed me to tap in to my own discomfort and challenge myself to address my grief in relation to the experiences of others in western society.