My grandfather loved to take photographs. He was an amateur photographer and built his own darkroom in an old storeroom under the house. Through the photographs he took across many decades, he chronicled periods of his life and those of his family. As a result, there is a rich vein of archival family photographs which is now mine to explore. I’ve spent many enjoyable moments looking through photographs that my grandfather took, as well as those taken by his predecessors, stretching back to 1901.
Black and white photographs appeal to me and I tend to draw in black and white as I like the dramatic quality that this provides. In this quiet conversation with the photograph, I am engaging on one level with my family history; yet I am also making work that is new, of me, and of now.
I think it is significant that I use archival family photographs and ones I’ve taken myself rather than photos I’ve found elsewhere. There is an intimacy to this; a personal connection to unravel. I am personally invested in them and that matters to my art. – Domenica Hoare
