From the series "A Flickering in the Midday Series" selected for the 2024 Critical Mass Top 200.
Beyond the pane
a glimmer,
barely perceived
yet still
it draws my gaze.
A flickering
in the midday
silver.
A calling
from me to you,
who is always
leaving.
In the space of just a few short weeks in the Spring of 2024, I lost both my father and my brother, one was expected, the other not. This body of work was made soon after that time whilst on a residency in Italy, in the first week I had to fly home for the second funeral in two months.
During this time, I threw myself into my writing and photography, trying to process everything and find my equilibrium. I was still reeling, trying to regain a foothold, to reassert myself in a world where I felt the walls were crumbling. But as I soon discovered, grief isn’t linear. There is no moment when you finally come to, get over it, work it all out and come through the other side. I’m still there, managing from one moment to the next, feeling everything just as keenly.
It is the physical intensity of this sense of loss that I wanted to capture in these photographs and in the writing that accompanies them. How you feel loss in the body, in your stomach and on your skin, how you become acutely aware of the fragility and the terrible tenderness around you. It is about the futile, but unavoidable and ongoing attempt, to hold on to love, even after you know it has already gone.
I am so thrilled that this work has been selected for the Critical Mass 2024 Top 200. Many many thanks to the jurors for this recognition.