Dad by Me. Me of Dad.

March 2011

In late 1989, my father announced that he had been having an affair with one of his students. All of our lives took an unexpected change of course that night.

Subsequent arguments and ultimatums forced my familial involvement into taking control, and insisting upon certain levels of decorum and respect. These were traumatic times for us all, and internally, my new role I performed with discomfort and chagrin.

As a potential therapy for my disdain, I sought to express my discord via a series of separate portraits of each of my parents, and in what seems quite blunt now, a visual declaration of my allegiances.

Today, the somewhat circumspect opinion I have as a 46 year old is informed by what I have experienced myself of shared lives, and of the compromise and sacrifice required for success by both partners, as well as the unfulfilled dreams and expectations that haunt middle age.

20 years later, and 16 years after he died, I remembered the portraits I had shot of dad with an uneasy sense of bias.

Upon realising that we were now in fact the same age, I was presented with a unique self portrait comparison that I could not resist exploring.

These images are a direct response to my original implied statements, from the lessened altitude that time and experience has afforded me.