about

cv

larks and katydids

apparitions

a hiding place

the dollhouse

Isabelle Carroll
Cyanotype on fabric print of collaged childhood photographs

I tend to live in the past, in memories, and in daydreams, rather than in the present moment; although I am not always a part of things, I can see from behind panes of glass and through mirrored reflections. Art is my way of processing, engaging, understanding, and questioning: how is it that I move through the world? As a result, my work is primarily about memory, consciousness, the past, and the instability of time. Utilizing my own photography as well as appropriated imagery from childhood photo albums, I explore these subjects.

I am interested in the ways that we imbue objects, spaces, and photographs with memories. I’m interested in possession: a haunting, and an ownership. We hang on to objects, imbued with memories, and store them away in archives; we possess them, but they also possess us: they move with us in the present. I explore the places in which we store these objects and memories, these things we revisit - our shells - the places we escape to in daydreams and in memories.

Time, memory, the past, and dreams are all unstable, unreliable, messy, and unclear; this is reflected in my photographic processes. Images are interfered with at multiple steps in the process, mimicking the interruptions and inaccuracy of our memories; nothing is as straightforward as it seems. Edges are left raw and frayed. In an effort to pin down my past, my dreams, and my memories, I hope to leave them behind; I hope to live in the present.