In search of lost parts of my childhood I try to think outside the reality I was socialised into and create new ones with my parents and self. When I was younger, my Father went through difficulties with his mental health and with alcohol, and the work now operates as a means to connect, and compensate for times lost, in coming to terms with his illness. I like to use photography to explore my relationship with deception, the constructed reality of the family, and question the boundaries between my parents and I, between child/adult, self/other, nature/culture, real/fake in attempt to revive my unconditioned self, beyond the family bubble. Although easily assumed to be photoshopped or faked, upon closer inspection the images are often realised to be more real than first expected. Involving staged installations, the cartoonesque and the performative, I look back to my younger self and attempt to re-connect with my Father, and re-capture childhood nature through my assuming adult eyes.
This grant will help me to realise more masks milled from wood, that will look further at mental health issues within my family, with the hope that my personal experience may be extrapolated to others' experiences. I am keen to make masks that close around different parts of my body, pushing them in to different positions. I have one mask idea of an ellipsoid of my mother's face, out of 8 parts, that are worn by my hands instead of my head. When worn, the mask (being milled from a 3d scan to the exact proportions of my hands) will push my hands in to prayer position. In order to hold together, these will be pushed from 8 hands of different family members. I often see these 3D scans as 3D photographs. These will go to form a new series of photographs, that I would love to exhibit alongside the masks themselves, in order to create a dynamic display in a multi disciplinary approach to photography.
