Repose
In the series, Repose, I mine my family photo albums and select images to restage. I recreate aspects of these images using myself and my family. I try to remember the circumstances of the original photographs as well as the spirit of the expressions and I ask my mother and sister to do the same as I photograph them; however, more often than not, it is impossible to return. The images touch on loss and the unattainable through juxtaposition of the past and present. They are about my shifting identity and my familial relationships. The photographs demonstrate an invisible thread that ties me, my sister and my mother to her mother although we are separated on genetic and temporal levels (my mother was adopted). The repetition of the poses, expressions and clothing has an uncanny effect: the remakes appear other than natural as they scratch at something just beneath the surface of our family psyche.
I search for something in the originals unique to me or my family members – an innocence or natural state uncorupted by culture and learned behavior —and I question whether or not this state exists. Repose, represents both my personal experience and my interpretation of the current cultural condition that provides the structure for our individual experiences. Repose is sad and funny and at times bleak. It is my attempt to reconcile some of the feelings I have about getting older, my familial relationships, and the potential—fulfilled or unfulfilled—that each family photograph holds.
Repose: Grandmother, Mother, Mother 1961, 1990, 2005
Repose: Bath 1973-2004
Repose: Lilacs 1978-2005
Repose: Checkered Dress 1974-2004
Repose: Red 1979-2005
Repose: Portrait 1979-2005
Repose: Easter 1974-2005
Repose: Snow 1975-2005