This series was inspired by photographs of my family – great grandparents, grandparents, parents before I knew them, myself at different ages and now my own children. I began painting about 10 years ago and loved painting lushly colored landscapes, but wanted to keep the black and white photographic images of people so I have been experimenting with incorporating them inside the painting. The biggest technical challenge was transferring the image onto material that could be inserted in the painting. The backgrounds are loosely based on what was in the photograph though and the colors come from my own emotional response to the images. I also have played around with temporality – sometimes combining images from two different periods of time. And the series gives me the chance to experience the past in the present as I work on each piece and consider the mystery of time.