Hailey Shen

This piece explores how revisiting old photographs can cast the past in an idealized light. While our memories today encompass both joy and pain, photographs can often emphasize only the positive. I used pink hues throughout the work to visually represent the cognitive bias of rosy retrospection: our tendency to remember the past as more favorable than it truly was. By softly blurring the edges, I aimed to create a contemplative atmosphere that reflects the tension between memory and reality.

24” x 20”
Colored pencil on paper