My Hypnosis Drawing series is a body of work based on the science of how memories function in the brain. According to some research, the more one remembers past events, the less faithful and true to the event that memory becomes. Leading researcher in this field, Dr. Yadin Dudai, concludes that “the safest memories are the memories which are in the brain of people who cannot remember.” I found the implications of Dr. Dudai’s statement to be both beautiful and heartbreaking.
While under hypnosis I made a series of drawings of my earliest memories. I cast the finished drawings in blocks of concrete so that they can never be revealed. My earliest memories are now entombed in a surrogate vault so that the evidence of their existence is visible, but can never truly be known. Any attempt to retrieve the image from the concrete would destroy the work.
—Mike Womack, Associate Professor, Painting and Drawing