© National Portrait Gallery 2024
King Edward Terrace, Parkes
Canberra, ACT 2600, Australia
Phone +61 2 6102 7000
ABN: 54 74 277 1196
National Photographic Portrait Prize 2007 Finalist
Kill them with kindness is a portrait of my grandmother, Dawn Atkins. This image resulted from a year-long series of photographic visits to my grandmother's house and garden, drawing on her passion for ikebana, the ancient art of Japanese flower arranging. The project began from a desire to use photography as a way of spending time and to archive what is ultimately fleeting - our corporeal experience of time. In this image Dawn holds a strelitzia cut from her garden toward a biscuit barrel my late grandfather carved for her while serving in New Guinea during World War 2. Composed in front of the garage door these objects are re-ordered creating a portrait of intimacy and estrangement. The flower becomes a kind of magic wand used as a domestic invocation or perhaps a fishing rod for memories. The image records and remembers family lineage - a photograph designed to make old histories speak again and allow new conversations to circulate.
Photography is the most pervasive and popular medium for portraiture and makes a natural fit with the Gallery, being a natural extension of the Gallery's longstanding commitment to photography as a contemporary portrait medium.
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