“Random Access Memories” by Daniel Lee

About the Exhibit:

Random Access Memories: A collection of works, 2018-2026

Random Access Memories is a collection of photographs drawn from eight years of lived experience, revisited and transformed through long exposure, cyanotype, and photographic distortion.

Memory does not return to us intact. It fragments, fades, overlaps, and changes each time we access it. A moment once vivid can become distant, while something seemingly insignificant can remain with us for years. To remember is also to forget.

These works approach photography not simply as a means of preserving the past, but as a way of examining what remains of it. Images become traces—figures dissolve, time accumulates, and familiar moments become unfamiliar again.

Like memories themselves, these photographs exist somewhere between document and reconstruction. They preserve evidence of a physical world that has already passed while revealing the invisible, ephemeral world that continues to shape who we become.

The photograph preserves what happened.

Memory preserves what remains.

Artist Statement:

To live is to die: to exist, one must suffer the cruel, inevitable nature called life. Humanity exists to suffer and bear the cessation of pain, and eventually, time collects what is owed. These are the abstract notions Daniel Lee (Baltimore, Maryland) captures and conveys through the multidisciplinary nature of Lee’s work utilizing space, time, and the body. Using various explorative means of artistic articulation, Lee accentuates abstractions of reality to emphasize the unrelenting nature of time, conveying that time takes from everyone. Whether it’s your sense of self, your memories, or your life, the universe will eventually collect what is owed.