Memory loss associated with dementia normally starts with the obvious things, misplacing small items such as keys, forgetting names. This work explores the tension between losing and finding, feeling isolated and making re-connections, misplacing and unlocking memories. The patterns are based on old keys and wallpapers, which are symbols of home comfort and domestic life.

‘Sometimes when I am alone with my thoughts, I wander aimlessly around the corridors of my mind. I open various doors to see if they are still full of the memories I stored there long ago… as I move from the past toward the present, I find more and more empty rooms. Not only are they empty, they are dark. They offer no clue, other than the label on the door, as to what they once contained… I race up and down in the corridors of my mind, frantically seeking to make sense of what’s going on around me. Sometimes this process makes me even more lost, and I become lost about why I am lost.’

Richard Taylor, Alzheimer’s from the inside out, 2007