Rose Marjanneke Williamson reconstructs their fragmented childhood. Using themselves as the subject, Rose recollects memories of adverse adolescent experiences, which requires a process rooted in the ongoing documentation of the self. In their work, Rose presents the evolving narrative history of the effects of prolonged child abuse.

Revisiting the past, their studio practice involves archiving moments in time through methods such as note-taking and poetry, collecting flashbacks through drawings, and rediscovering found personal photographs.

Recognizing that the way in which we recall traumatic events disintegrates in clarity over time, Rose’s work mimics this constant flux state and merges various processes in an interdisciplinary fashion. A combination of techniques from drawing, painting, printmaking, and fiber arts are used to create mixed-media artworks that investigate the repercussions of trauma.

Traumatic experiences can imprint a lasting feeling of dissociation and vulnerability. Therefore, Rose intentionally incorporates fragile materials that are subject to manipulation and distortion over time such as charcoal, paper, thread, 35mm film, and cardboard. Each a metaphor for how the memory of past events continues to become more faded and obscured, yet still affects the present.

The techniques Rose utilizes within the works concurrently mends and inflicts damage. Sewing, punctures and repairs simultaneously and a similar act is mirrored through weaving, where the work is physically torn and woven back together. However, the violent destructive nature of paper-making takes their worn clothing and beats it into individual fibers, destroying them into an unrecognizable pulp, presenting us with a new transformed surface.

Overall the individual artworks Rose constructs encounter a familiar cycle in which they are destroyed, restored, and distorted. This process continuously repeats itself within each artwork, when undertaking the reconstruction of their fragmented childhood.