The Absym/Ligatures of Ivy - Book Installation - CultVR Gallery, Elysium Gallery, UK

***Kyotographie KG Select+ Finalist***
*** Gomma New Flavours Award Finalist***

The Abysm/Ligatures of Ivy is an ongoing body of work exploring mental health and loneliness. Originally conceived as a book, I began a collaboration with my father exploring the emotions of regret and inertia following the collapse of my father’s business in the 1980s, in post-industrial South Wales. Unable to fulfil the role of financial provider and protector of my family, my father slowly retreated into himself during this period of unemployment. For thirty years the fear of failure and the guilt of patriarchal inaction manifested itself into clinical depression. It was upon the recent diagnosis of a life-threatening disease that repressed emotions overflowed and my father suffered a mental breakdown.

The initial documentary approach evolved into more than thirty photobook maquettes depicting my father’s daily domestic routines, including experimental montages and collages that drew on the symbolism of the surrounding natural environment. The maquette experimentation offered opportunities to deepen the visual experience and add nuance of a wider social and economic context.

The work continues to be realised through editioned photobook installations including framed and unframed work, large scale bookpages and photobook maquettes. 

Buy the Abysm Print Collection