Award-winning artist Victoria Reichelt’s precise and intricately crafted paintings capture everyday objects and places that seem destined for obsolescence or change, from library and archive spaces to old copies of LIFE magazine; in her more recent work, she captures the ephemera of parenthood. Yet her bright palette and arresting composition resist the easy declension narratives of nostalgia, instead posing more complex questions about the meaning and purpose of our material goods. In this conversation with Griffith Review Editor Carody Culver, Victoria illuminates the intricacy of her process and the relationship between painting and photography in her work.

CARODY CULVER: You work grapples with notions of ephemerality, memory and the passage of time. Your latest exhibition, Batch, is a collection of paintings featuring lavishly decorated cakes, and for me the allure of these images is partly due to the knowledge that the existence of those cakes is fleeting. What draws you to these kinds of subjects, and what particular qualities are you seeking to capture in your depictions of them?