Fragmented memory

The project started off looking at old pictures my father had purchased from a charity shop which had reminded so I had decided to do it on my family ancestry. Upon exploring into the process, the project has developed on looking at memories of my own childhood and the people who have been an influence on me growing up. My father who has a career as a garda and was also a painter, who loved art and my mother’s influences on me too as a parent. 

The process brought me on a journey like walking through a forest of different memories.  As my youngest sister and brother were both in the autistic spectrum, I had remembered how their diagnosis had an impact on our family. We can have some happy memories and some broken and fragmented ones. I like the idea of Kintsugi which is the Japanese art of putting broken pieces back together with gold which is a metaphor of embracing your imperfections. An image of my brother and mother resonated this in fact started me the journey into the forest.  
Trees are haunting and beautiful and have symbolic qualities of growth, death and revival which is why its portrayed in folklore. This inspired me to portray us as two young children, finding our way through life and then I finally accepting us for all our flaws