my dear daddy
photographic series
video works: slow dance: 3min; the memory jacket: 55s
2012

‘Immobility and silence are not only two objective aspects of death, they are also its main symbols, they figure it’ *

Fueled by nostalgia, loss and mourning, this solo exhibition re-figures the aura of my late father by mapping out a personal world inhabited by myself as a masked figure portrayed in a variety of domestic and picturesque Caribbean spaces. The still images of varying sizes are soaked in immobility and silence, punctuated by two small moving image works and a group of character studies with one unmasked portrait. The presence of my home’s 1960s furniture maping the gallery space; draws the viewer into the photographic plane, resonating with those more familiar with this environment then myself.
This character which I have named Whitey, re-appropriates the long lost family home and ‘exotic’ landscapes alongside collaged images of my father, which hover in the space that he should have inhabited. Within this re-composed archive, Whitey’s poses are portrayals of the saturated emotional lanscapes which I inhabit. First created as a coping mechanism, Whitey has grown into a stand-alone character which appears in other charged Caribbean spaces such as Cuba’s Bay of Pigs; in search of my wider Caribbean heritage.

* Christian Metz, ‘Photography and Fetish’ in The Critical Image: Essays in Contemporary Photography, ed. Carol Squiers, Seattle, Bay Press, 1990, pp.155-64

Title: Appendix 1 (Le Pendu), Medium: Vinyl Banner: 40 in x 32 in

Title: Sussex, St Ann, Medium: Archival inkjet print : 50 in x 40 in

Title: Holding Back: Aluminium Offset Plate: 25.5 in x 21 in

Title: The Threshold (Orange Park), Aluminium Offset Plate: 25.5 in x 21 in

Title: With Alexa: Medium: Archival inkjet print : 25 in x 20

Title: Bay of pigs (Cuba), Medium: Archival inkjet print : 50 in x 40 in

Title: Santeria 1 (The Bedroom), Medium: Archival inkjet print : 25 in x 20 in

Title: Santeria 2: Medium: Archival inkjet print : 25 in x 20 in

Title: Meyrick’s bed, Medium: Vinyl Banner: 96 in x 64 in

Title: Baby Grand: Medium: Archival inkjet print : 25 in x 20

Title: Coming Home (with mother,) Medium: Archival inkjet print : 50 in x 40 in

TItle: Mask 1: Medium: Aluminium offset plate: 25.5 in x 21 in

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