The Carriers of Memory: Between Image, Ink, and Sustainability

When I began sorting through decades of photos on my computer, I expected nostalgia — not revelation. But as I scrolled, I realised these weren’t just references for paintings or sketches of places I’d seen. They were snapshots of perception itself: how I had looked, framed, composed, and been present across forty years of artistic practice.

Some of these images now stand on their own as fine art — released from their former duty as 'reference photos.' They have become memory shots of the unseen, visual essays about time, absence, and attention.

Photography is usually thought of as digital and dematerialised — yet it, too, relies on matter: ink, paper, pigment, carrier. In turning these photos into prints, I found myself returning to the same question that drives my painting practice: What is the cost of permanence?

To print is to commit — to transform light into substance. To remain purely digital is to exist in a kind of limbo: abundant but impermanent. So, is sustainability about dematerialisation — or about caring for what we make and choosing its material form responsibly?

This realisation brought me back to my own mixed-media work — the balance between handmade and professional pigments, natural and synthetic, digital and tactile. Each carries its own ecology, its own story. Whether a photograph, a pigment, or a sheet of paper, everything is part of the same dialogue: how we carry meaning through materials, and how we act as stewards of our creative world.

In that sense, this blog begins where my archives end — as an exploration of how the traces of a life in art continue to evolve, transform, and find new carriers. Here, I’ll continue reflecting on the intersections between image, material, teaching, and sustainability — from pigment stories to open studio notes.

Beim Durchsehen meiner digitalen Archive entdeckte ich, dass viele meiner Fotos längst eigenständige Kunstwerke geworden sind – Erinnerungsfragmente eines künstlerischen Lebens. Diese Reflexionen über das Verhältnis von Digitalem und Materiellem, von Nachhaltigkeit und Erinnerung, bilden den Ausgangspunkt dieser neuen Blogreihe.

© Vicky Jocher 2025 – Artist Journal | kunstSpace Fridingen Mixed Media, Illustration, and Fine Art Photography