Without your mother

PHOTOGRAPHY

Sep 12

Australian photographer Madeline Bishop created a series of diptych photographs questioning how our relationship with our mother changes as we grow up, detach and become more independent.

Photography Madeline Bishop

'Without your mother' is a series of diptych photographs taken in Melbourne and Canberra on the lands of the Ngunnawal, Boon Wurrung and Wurundjeri people. The images consider the nature of absence in maternal relationships.

We begin our lives looking for our mothers. Do we ever stop looking for them and do they ever stop looking for us? As we grow, we attempt to detach ourselves in order to become independent and live adult lives. What remnants of this relationship that defines our early lives remain in the distance of adulthood? Our memories morph, the details become duller and distorted over time and we’re left with a summarised version of what might have happened, similar to a photograph. Some edges will blur and some will sharpen until those are the only parts we can remember.

“As we grow, we attempt to detach ourselves in order to become independent and live adult lives.”

“Our memories morph, the details become duller and distorted over time and we’re left with a summarised version of what might have happened, similar to a photograph.”

About Madeline

Madeline Bishop is a photography and video artist based in Melbourne/Narrm, Australia. Bishop’s work is conceptually centred around relational dynamics. Exploiting the persistent tension between distance and closeness in photographs, Bishop’s work uses a performative and constructed approach to dissecting the relationship between photography and intimacy. Bishop is a Master of Fine Arts graduate with First Class Honours from the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne and has been a finalist in a number of prizes, most recently the 2020 Bowness Prize.

To see more of her work, visit her website or follow her on Instagram

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Without your mother

Australian photographer Madeline Bishop created a series of diptych photographs questioning how our relationship with our mother changes as we grow up, detach and become more independent.

“As we grow, we attempt to detach ourselves in order to become independent and live adult lives.”

“Our memories morph, the details become duller and distorted over time and we’re left with a summarised version of what might have happened, similar to a photograph.”

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