Family
Pictures is an ongoing body of work by photographer Robin
Grierson. Starting with the birth of his first child in 1994,
the photographs form Grierson's own family album. The work has evolved
to become a significant and moving project with the capacity to
speak to those beyond his immediate family.
Most of us have family albums
and have at some point taken photographs of family members. It is
not difficult to relate to the images and moments recorded by Grierson
and to understand the instinctive desire to capture that instant.
However, Grierson's images have something other, a truthfulness
and emotional intensity we do not usually find when looking at photographs
of strangers' families. There is a sense of opening up his family
life to the public gaze, allowing us to enter their personal world.
Over the course of the project
we see the family members grow older, often returning to the same
locations for family gatherings or holidays. For the viewer there
is sense of recognition, both in the common experience of holidays
and family outings, but also in a feeling of coming to know the
family members. They are both familiar and foreign at the same time.
The works have the capacity to arouse strong emotions, prompting
our memories without being our memories.
Whilst not embarked upon
as a public project, Grierson's choice to take this body of work
to a public domain brings to it many new levels of interpretation.
The images lead us to question the relationship between photography
and memory, private, and public and between photographer and subject.
Robin Grierson has exhibited
at the National Museum of Photography in Bradford and at the Photographers'
Gallery in London. Family Pictures is a touring show from
Focal Point Gallery in partnership with Light House in Wolverhampton
.
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