Collection: Willow Bayer

Work by Willow Bayer from the "Family Photos" exhibition

Photographs have always been important to me. A lot of people, including myself, enjoy looking back on the past to see how much has changed. In the case of most of these photographs, it’s experiencing what my family’s life was like before me or when I was little. Reminiscing on moments like my grandma and her friends getting wild in their 20s at a bar or my mom opening Christmas gifts at the age of 3.

I’m drawn to older photographs because of how precious these moments must have been. When most of these photos were taken, you had limited film that you then had to wait to develop to see what they even looked like. Sometimes they are overexposed, blurry, or don't turn out at all. It is very different from the present day where we can instantly take several photos, pick the best one, and share it with the whole world in seconds.

These pieces are the moments I decided to recreate. Since most of the photos are in black and white, I get to have a lot of fun playing with colors. They are little portals to the past reimagined in a new light.

– Willow Bayer