The new exhibit “Tyanna Buie: [MFA ’10] After Image Exhibition” represents a culmination of the artist’s multi-year excavation of her childhood through a handful of family photographs.

“Buie’s artistic practice reveals the powerful role memory plays in how we understand the world around us,” said Leah Kolb, curator of exhibitions at Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA). “Even as memories shift and evolve, they nevertheless represent something essential to being human — they shape our perceptions and inform how we define ourselves.”

On Friday, May 3, the artist will present a lecture based on her research and exploration of memory following a reception at MMoCA. Each monotype in After Image is based on an original photograph Buie obtained from a family member.

“When Tyanna asked if she could borrow them, I think Tyanna said she had to pay to borrow them,” Kohlb said.

For Buie, the lines between art and memory fade. She experienced familial instability, abuse, and domestic transience throughout her childhood growing up in both Chicago and Milwaukee during the 1980s and 1990s.

While working on the exhibition, Buie underwent a process of searching for clues to capture details of the times in her life, remembering objects or family events. This required her to revisit periods of her life she never thought about before and ask questions.