iPad No. 1

From the Artist: Touches in Quarantine (iPad, Number 1) is a photograph of my personal device taken during the early months of the Covid pandemic when little was known of how the virus was transmitted and health guidelines were changing. Like so many others, I was glued to the news on TV and my personal devices.

Making art while so many suffered seemed futile, yet I yearned to create work that helped me process my feelings. I grappled with how to make work that was personal yet also universal. I was interested in discovering beauty in what we feared while also finding a way to document my time at home during quarantine. For months we were told to constantly wash our hands, avoid touching surfaces as much as possible, and to wipe down groceries and all packages coming into our homes. My fear of contracting Covid had me cleaning my personal devices more than ever, yet over time my diligence waned.

One morning I saw the sun reflecting off the dirty surface of my iPad that had silently journaled my existence in quarantine over the past week. Long semi-vertical brushstrokes made by my fingers record my journey as I scrolled through news articles. Sharp, slim lines from where my fingernails grazed the surface reveal the dark black of the glass, and staccatoed fingerprints overlap and are rendered specters of emails once written. Time and touch–two ethereal and ephemeral concepts–become the tangible focal point of the photograph.