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ABSENCE AS FORM is a series of digital images inspired by the shrouded figures recurring in the backgrounds of child portraits made in the early photography studios of the 1840s-1920.  These “hidden mothers” were an effort to keep children still for the long exposure times necessary to render an image, often up to thirty seconds.  In ABSENCE AS FORM children are replaced by symbols of motherhood, femininity, fertility, and care; though the hidden mother remains.  The black & white treatment and long exposure times emulate the processes of the era and honor the taxing physical conditions of early portraiture.

In the making of these images, a loose narrative of “matrescence” materialized.  A term used to describe “the time of mother-becoming,” it encompasses the psychological, social, cultural, spiritual, and existential changes that occur throughout motherhood.  ABSENCE AS FORM follows a shrouded figure’s journey of matrescence: the fragility, fertility, and futility felt in care, femininity, and identity; and a shift towards power.  Though the anonymity of the figure lends a sense of impersonality, traces of a deeper absence emphasize her presence nonetheless.   

If the veiled figures of the antique hidden mothers were attempts to obscure presence – to create the illusion of absence – ABSENCE AS FORM gives shape to a void. 

FALL 2024