The thought of putting my opinions and thoughts online, exposed for interpretation or misinterpretation, terrifies me. Don’t even ask about posting pictures of myself; the last selfie I shared on my social media feeds was in 2019. The vast unknown of the digital world overwhelms me, whereas speaking live in front of thousands of people sounds like a cakewalk.
This anxiety towards the digital realm—the black hole of social media—is not unique. I am neither the first nor the last to feel it. However, a new sensation emerged when I walked into the third second-floor gallery space at MOCA Arlington and encountered Marisa Stratton’s solo exhibition You Will Never Be Forgotten.
The gallery space houses a series of delicately crafted objects. Some are small rectangles of wood or paper mounted and floating off the walls; others are kinetic spinning wooden circles, rotating ceaselessly. The surfaces of these objects feature Stratton’s vibrant impasto-style paintings, saturated with color. They depict screenshots from her TikTok’s “For You” page and Instagram feed, capturing a curious mixture of pixelation, Impressionism, and color blocking.
These digital subjects—faces, bodies, and social media icons such as the share button—interact with elements of phone screens, complete with cutouts resembling the cameras on both the front and back of devices. The balance between the digital and painterly elements creates a dialogue that feels both familiar and estranging, as if one is scrolling through memories materialized on physical surfaces.