Lisa Waup
To TRACE is to follow what is no longer fully visible. It is an act of searching through memory, through history, through absence - for something that resists being held in the present. To TRACE is the remembrance of loss to return again and again, to what cannot be recovered. Grief leaves its own markings - subtle yet deeply etched. These traces are carried in the body, in personal daily rituals, in the quiet repetition of memory. They do not restore the loved one, but they keep their presence in motion. Tracing becomes both method and metaphor. I work with repetition, layering, erasure – the drawing of lines that drift between appearing and disappearing. Mark making is an attempt to hold onto something fleeting, while accepting its inevitable dissolution. To TRACE is not to arrive at a final image. It is to remain in the act of following, being attentive to what lingers, to what fades, and to what continues to shape us even in its absence.