Merged Portrait Print

My practice questions the uniqueness of our appearance in comparison to our relations. I focus on identity within families, exploring the ideology surrounding familial identity, resemblance and genetic inheritance. The influence for my work has been of personal investigation; comments about the similarities between family members have triggered a line of enquiry that explores generational genomic inheritance and the perception that we are all unique. I employ photography as the underlining basis for my work. Digital technology then allows me to dissect and re-render photographs of family members, which I then use predominantly for photographic silk-screen printmaking processes. Along side this I have also begun to explore the use of video in my artwork. All these processes combine to utilise visual distortions in order to question the viewers understanding of the image, making the familiar, unfamiliar. In an attempt to engage with the association between art and science and the genetic inheritance between family members and their resemblance, I mimic the aesthetic quality of the stains used in laboratories to view DNA under the microscope, to both question and inform the viewer of the family similarities throughout the generations.
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