Drawn To Remember: A Project About Perception and Memory
by Dana Forsberg
February 9, 2006 - May 29, 2007

One police sketch artist. Five subjects. Thirty composite drawings.”

Honolulu artist Dana Forsberg presents a new body of work in Drawn to Remember, a series of thirty composite drawings detailing five subjects. Forsberg states,“How do we remember a person? Is memory informed from what they look like, the clothes they wear, the way they speak? How are our perceptions translated and interpreted? Everyone’s memory of a person or situation is different.”

For this project, Forsberg selected five separate individuals as subjects and for each subject found six people who knew them in different capacities—such as a friend, family member, spouse or colleague.Each person was asked to describe the subject to a police sketch artist at the Honolulu Police Department. Using a series of forensic books and techniques, the police sketch artist drew out information to reconstruct the subject based on the person’s recollection of the subject. Exhibited side by side the five sets of six drawings show the subtleties of perception and the vagaries of memories. Forsberg is interested in exploring questions about these ideas.

Forsberg says, “These drawings alone are not meant to be a portrait of the subject, but a record of a person’s memory, and as a group, speak to something concrete like a drawing, are they true? How does memory match what one sees? How is that different from a photograph? A photograph can show the person’s features, but fail to show character because it ‘lacks life’ and doesn’t reflect their ‘expression’.”

Forsberg received a BFA in Photography from the University of Colorado at Denver. She has exhibited her work at numerous venues, including Denver International Airport, Ron Judish Fine Arts in Denver, Salon 5 Gallery in Honolulu, The Arts at Marks Garage in Honolulu, and the Incheon Art and Cultural Center in Incheon, Korea. Her work has been featured in Korea Daily, Artweek, the Honolulu Advertiser, and the Denver Post, among others, and is in private and corporate collections in Colorado, Virginia, Washington, Hawaii and Sweden.

Exhibitions are supported by First Hawaiian Bank and ResortQuest Hawaii, formerly Aston Hotels and Resorts.