Family Portrait Series: Papi Mac

Artist’s Statement: This piece portrays my great-grandfather Papi Mac on his 90th birthday. It is overlaid with the Mourner’s Kaddish—a Hebrew prayer to honor the dead in the Jewish tradition. I portray the passage of time through birthday candles—a marker of age—and the Mourner’s Kaddish—a marker of death. Papi Mac died before I was born, but he lives on through my mother’s stories and my artwork. This is part of an audiovisual narrative inspired by memories in my family history.