Memory as reconstruction

“A Piece of Pie” (oil on canvas), by Debra Samdperil, in her show “All Is Not Lost,’’ at Kingston Gallery, Boston, Oct. 1-Nov. 1.

She says:

“For me, painting is not a means of illustrating an idea but a way of discovering one. I approach abstraction not as the absence of representation but as a means of expanding it—allowing emotion, memory, and imagination to exist simultaneously. 

“Images only emerge through a process of accumulation, erasure, and response, where each mark suggests the next. I am very interested in the way memory functions as fragmented, layered, and constantly reconstructed. Familiar shapes appear like half-remembered forms or fleeting thoughts that dissolve into gestures and color. Color functions as both structure and emotion. Black lines alternately define, interrupt, and destabilize, creating tension between containment and release.

“The finished work remains open-ended: a visual conversation between order and improvisation, memory and invention, structure and chance.’’