When my artist mother, the late Daphne Mason, died in 2020, we were left with her memories. Not simply memories of her, but also the memories she had transmitted to us over the years. I began to realize to what extent our understanding of who we were as a family, our whakapapa, depended so much on these first-hand memories that it was now up to us to pass on to future generations.

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What intrigued me though was how one-sided these memories could be. Long since departed family members and friends, other well-known artists, even a former boyfriend in New York, were sometimes reduced to brief cameo appearances or hilarious one-liners that have remained with us for decades. We probably rarely thought to round out these characters, and doubtless with the years these memories softened at the edges once again.

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This series entitled: Tales My Mother Told Me explores the concept of memory using the act of taking apart and reassembling images, before painting over, uncovering, and retrieving fragments, to create new connections and meanings. My process reflects how memory evolves and builds connections; and how those very connections can drift and reconnect along the memory’s edges.  I explore how, with time, memories break down until only fragments remain; and how the accumulated patchworked memories within a family can help define who we are and where we came from, as well as what we treasure. These works acknowledge the spiritual and emotional significance of certain memories and events that are now part of my family’s narrative.