Pif Magazine excitedly shares the mixed media art of Natalie Bradford, and the process she calls memoryscape.

Natalie Bradford lives and works in Kalamazoo, Michigan. She graduated from the University of Western Michigan Frostic School of Art with a bachelor’s degree in fine studio art with an emphasis in print media. 

“Memories are fleeting and inconsistent. Every time we recall memories from our long-term memory, in particular, some of the information either gets lost in the retrieval or our brains fill in small gaps with other memories, resulting in a slightly different and ever-changing “false” memory. In my work, I explore how our memories alter and shift narratives; I’m interested in examining how our memories undergo changes as we age, and we try to hold onto those precious moments of people and places that we love and want to remember forever, but lose bits of them through those countless retrievals in our heads.”

“My artistic process starts with identifying my sources; I pull my inspiration from family photo albums dating back to the 1930s through present day, as well as older vintage ephemera such as magazines and postcards. I then cut, remove, add, and shift around pieces of the photos to create a new narrative or memoryscape. The final step is transferring the new memoryscape to a new surface with either alternative printmaking image transfer methods such as lacquer thinner or gel medium or making a traditional cut-and-paste collage. With some pieces, I incorporate mixed media elements, such as hand sewing or transferred handwriting. By doing this process, I show how our memories can become immensely abstracted from their original captured moments as photographs, and the many ways in which memories can change.”

See more of Natalie’s work here or on her Instagram page @natalie.bradford