Mom and Me

Mom and Me

LibArt 2020

Artist statement: How do you photograph someone who is no longer around? This was the guiding question I asked myself as I approached this body of work. Ode to a Childhood Lost is a series in which I attempted to create a portrait of my mother, who passed away when I was 9 years old. Since she died when I was so young, I only ever knew her as my mother, I never got the chance to know what she was like as a person. Through visiting her childhood home, school, and other environments and by digging through the artifacts she left behind from her life, I attempted to get to know a person who was only ever mom to me. She too was an artist–she wrote music, poetry, and took photographs–and I let the topics of her work and her style influence the way I photographed in an attempt to see the world in the way she saw it. Finally, I chose to use a large format film camera for this project as it allowed me to slow down. It forced me to really think through each photograph I was making and how it helped capture my mother. By selecting this tool, it helped me express those feelings of longing, loss, and grief through an extremely meditative process.

Kelcie Matousek

2020

Held by creator

JPG

Still image