Edith’s Album — Solo Exhibition

Artist Statement

The works exhibited in Edith’s Album tell stories of lives lived, of places and objects.

Edith was my partner’s maternal Grandmother, a woman I never knew. When I came across her World War I-era photographs, I was inspired to imagine and create stories out of the opaque moments pictured there.

I combined images from Edith’s album with my own photographs of rust and peeling paint and with ephemera—book covers and pages, stamps, sewing patterns, recipe and postcards, music from old hymnals, and birch bark—all layered with encaustic medium.

Salvaged objects that Edith herself used find new life as substrates for the art: a washboard, a scrub brush, a lid from a wood cookstove, and a window. Pairing the photographs with the objects gives each a deeper significance.

My intention was to create contemporary paintings imbued with the past.

— Ruth Maude