Ryley Clarke
As Memories & Time Entwine, A Hanging Branch Connects Us is an ongoing photographic narrative that retraces fragments of my personal and familial identity. Recounting the interconnections of remembrance, time, love, loss and belonging, my project interprets an exploration of the journeys, anecdotes and histories of my past ancestors. Weaving together the imaginations of the past and present, photographs and film stills entwine to perform a dialogue, forming contemporary memories and narrative encounters.
Prompted by an interest in the familial archive, an intimate exchange between my family shifts and unravels out of a mysterious existence. As I introspectively reflect upon my own youth and journey towards my adolescence, unknown and lost memories resurface, spaces and environments reveal themselves, familial relations and objects form new relationships.
What emerges is an interplay between absence and presence, disconnection and belonging, life and death; chronicling a space in search for a sense of belonging. Existing in-between the parallels of fact and fiction, staged and documentary, my work plays with the notion of ephemerality; suggesting a portrayal of my personal and familial history as an entity that expands upon the nature of the photographic still and ancestral tree. It exists in who we speculate to be, constantly in motion, fragmented and fragile as we navigate through a world of variously shifting selves and grow to recognise who we are.
Indistinct, 2020
Pigment print
297mm x 210mm
Absence & Presence, 2020
Pigment print
594mm x 841mm
Disconnected, 2020
Pigment print
594mm x 841mm
Sleepy Eyes, 2020
Pigment print
594mm x 841mm
Traces, 2020
Pigment print
594mm x 841mm
Memories by the Creek, 2020
Pigment print
841mm x 594mm
A Candle in the Dark, 2020
Pigment print
594mm x 841mm
Untitled Film Still, 2020
Pigment print
297mm x 210mm
