Instagram: @may.roded
Email: may.roded@gmail.com
Artist Statement
My work explores themes of time, memory, and psychological relationships that we develop with transient possessions and environment. The scarf I wear, which was purchased while visiting my family in Israel, and the identical twin monarch pin my sister and I both wear, bonded with the fond memories I have attached to those objects, symbolize these relationships. I use photographs from my family’s photo albums and drawings of personal imagery to reflect on the associations, such as displacement and longing. My father used to decorate our home with many house plants which now adorn my prints, as they take me back to that feeling of comfort.
The analog processes of photography and printmaking best relate to my practice because of their use of the impression. Not only the impression of capturing a moment in time, but the physical impression of plate to paper as it runs through the press. Similar to the neural pathway of cognitive thinking – one thought leading to another – prints are produced by taking thought to drawing to plate until it’s final state of the image on paper. Such as the impermanence of ownership over material items, our ability to re-envision precious memories waver and morph, influencing our perception of these same objects and spaces, and thus ultimately ourselves.
BIO
May Roded is a first generation Israeli-American printmaker and photographer living in Long Beach, CA. In 2017 May received her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Printmaking at California State University, Long Beach. She currently teaches printmaking courses at Loyola Marymount University, Otis College of Art and Design and and printmaking workshops at Josephine Press in Santa Monica, CA. Recent exhibitions include “Between The Trees” at The Center For the Arts Eagle Rock, in Eagle Rock, California.
May Roded 