Patrick Riley
I started photographing my parents at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
I boarded an empty plane back to Tasmania and was catapulted into my childhood bedroom. I suddenly became interested in the highly personal yet familiar aspects of ordinary life at home and the lives of my parents.
What is a normal family? My mum had me when she was twenty-three. That was probably normal back then, but I am older than she was and I don’t have a child. I don’t know what this means, but I began to look at old family photographs, trying to come to terms with the fact they were once my age. What were they like? I only know them now as my parents. But what were they actually like? Would I have been friends with them in another life? Are they as happy as they used to be? These questions start to linger over me.
My parents participate in making the photographs and often have control over the conditions and poses in the work, however there is a blurring of candid and performed scenes. I often sit and wait for something to happen, and my parents often sit and wait for me to focus the camera. My mother is much more forgiving and will wait patiently – my Dad is less so. Although few definitive answers have been found, sometimes it’s just the simple fact that we’ve been reunited through the making of this work, something that has brought us closer together.
Mum by the window, 2020
Photograph
Dad eating breakfast, 2020
Photograph
Wet feet in the kitchen, 2020
Photograph
Floating head, 2020
Photograph
Dad on the couch, 2020
Photograph
Mum watching television, 2020
Photograph
Lucky love yolk, 2020
Photograph
Mum and dad hugging in the backyard, 2020
Photograph
