Lauren Paterson

My work with shells serves as a metaphor for the fragility and resilience of life. These delicate remnants of once-living beings evoke themes of death, grief, and memory, embodying the passage of time. The shells, with their intricate patterns and weathered surfaces, carry the weight of past lives, their quiet fragility contrasting with the strength needed to endure loss. In my practice, I use shells to explore how memory clings to us- faint, yet enduring- and how grief, like the ocean's ebb and flow, shapes our perception of life and death. Through this work, I invite reflection on the cyclical nature of existence and the way we hold, carry, and transform our memories of those we have lost.