Carole Evans (UK, London)
Father and Son (2015), from the series Out of the Woods
Photograph
ARTIST STATEMENT:
This work is part of an ongoing project about being a parent for the first time. Initially about the trials we faced as new parents, it is now a documentary of an older father, and the love for his son.
My husband is 52. On 7 January this year, I was in recovery while our son was fighting for his life in Special Care. I can’t imagine how he must have felt that day. But we came out of it and, when we finally came home, we began our new role as parents.
It was harder than we’d imagined. Nothing can prepare you for the sleepless nights, the incessant crying, the constant worry that something may be wrong with this new, tiny human being.
I began photographing what was happening around us, when I had the time, with the intention of illustrating the difficulties of early parenthood. Soon, however, I realized I was documenting the relationship between father and son. As overwhelmed with love as he was with frustration, fear and exhaustion, Mark was keen to be hands on. The photographs of father and son are interspersed with still life images which illustrate how I was feeling as the third point of the family triangle.
Carole Evans is a photographer, educator and curator, and co-founder of Portrait Salon www.portraitsalon.co.uk.