In Inertia

 

Since the age of 18 my Father and I have both drifted apart and gotten closer in ways, it is only recently I have noticed our similarities and differences, the aim of these images is to enlighten the distinctions and confront the identity that our relationship has given me.

 

This body of work explores the traits, subsequent similarities and differences of my Father and I, my unrest and anguish and the legitimacy of the idea that all boys grow up to be their fathers. Underpinned by Franz Kafka’s “Letter to my Father” in which he describes the difficulties and hardships of a fractured father and son relationship in his own personal case, venting his feelings and emotions surrounding his father and their relation to one another. Utilising my father’s career choices as welder in the early part and weld inspector and engineer in the later stages as a metaphor for the connections and imperfections within the relationship between my father and I.

 

Combining my father’s photographs of weld tested structures and machinery with original photography to convey a personal narrative of conflict and unenlightened masculinity, fraught with miss-interpreted respect. Psychology has constantly evolved around this topic and mined for information and answers to the cause and effect relationship between the marks made by role of the father onto the blank canvas of his boy in the same way I aim to with this work.