Cooper Lott

Artist Statement

I am constantly walking through a memory. Every moment lived sinks into the past, and I find that it is either bound to rise to the surface or doomed to drown in the currents of my mind. In an attempt to navigate the past and present, I’ve turned to photography. What began with family photographs, images so familiar and bound to my history, has evolved into a dialogue with anonymous lives: archival images I will never know, yet whose existence continues on through my work.
My practice is rooted in making rather than taking photographs. I tear, cut, and collage. I print on paper, mirror, and cloth. Fragile and rigid materials alike become my canvas. Experimenting with cyanotypes, risograph, and other alternative processes bridge the gap between mechanical reproduction and human intimacy. I am the archivist: both preserving and transforming, echoing the ways memory itself is constantly rewritten.
Through this process, these lost and discarded memories are given new life and remembered for another moment. Now detached from their original context and owners, they are given new form and meaning. They are my collaborators, aiding me not to stop time, but to acknowledge its passage and create acceptance for what cannot last. As I continue to create, I am constantly reminded that the impermanence of memory isn’t a barrier, but a push to create a past worth mourning.