MEMORY
Tasmanian College of the Arts
June 2016
Memory (For a Sick Mother) explores the nature of the photograph as image object by employing a process that draws attention to the physical photograph itself as much as to the photographic subject. It exploits the unpredictability and fragility of hand made, chemical process image-making to subvert our tendency to see the photographic representation of a thing as the thing itself.
The tintypes comprising For a Sick Mother deal with a son's memories of his now aging mother who is gravely sick with dementia. The images evoke tender memories of the relationship of a mother with the family she raised and sad reflections upon the inexorable senescence she is experiencing as life fades away.