Artist's Statement

"While preparing for this show, I thought of my grandmother who passed away on October 26th, 2017. What had become a day of remembrance, would, this year, be a day of excitement as my first solo exhibition opens the same day. During the seven years I witnessed her suffer through Alzheimer’s, I came to appreciate how photography allows us to relive so many good moments we’d otherwise forget. A few months after her passing, I left for Geneva, Switzerland to study abroad for a semester. In the weeks before leaving for a new country, I found myself wanting to document as many experiences as I possibly could after having to watch my grandmother forget so many of hers. With that in mind, I decided to challenge myself to take a photo a day to tell a visual story of what life was like throughout the five months I was in Europe.

Hanging around the pillar of the gallery you will find four mobiles, each one with thirty-five images totaling to 140. Majority of the images were taken from my iPhone to give the feel of the old point-and-shoot cameras I used as a child. Written on the back is the date and location of where each one was captured, just as I had seen my parents do in the past. Instead of putting them all in a photo album, I wanted to find a way to hang them that didn’t require individual frames, which is where the idea for the mobiles came from.

The twenty larger images along the walls were taken with my DSLR as I was exploring Geneva. While the iPhone photos are mostly quick snapshots, the black and white images are ones that forced me to slow down and enjoy the views as I was seeing them. From the mountains to the architecture to even the people, there was so much beauty within the city that there always seemed to be something new to experience. I decided to make them into black and white images to help bring more attention to the details instead of focusing on all of the colors. Each of the photos in this series represent a time in my life that brought me peace when dealing with so much grief after losing my grandmother."

 - Kaylee Reagan