Photo Journal Monday: Candice Kwan

RicePlay, 2019 © Candice Kwan

All text and Images by Candice Kwan

The Long, The Lovely Drunkenness

The Long, The Lovely Drunkenness is part of a larger project, Tales of Motherhood, in which I use photography to explore the intense, transformative process of becoming a mother, while engaging with the history of representations of motherhood in art.

Climbing Vine, 2019 © Candice Kwan

The Long, The Lovely Drunkenness employs staged and still-life photography to examine the shaping of maternal identity, using my personal experiences as a point of departure. I want to express the idea of motherhood without resorting to the visual trope of Madonna and child. I chose the title of the series to pay homage to Tillie Olsen’s short story Tell Me A Riddle.

Boiling Point, 2019 © Candice Kwan

Rejecting historical clichés and platitudes, the project distills the complex interior topology of motherhood into a series of “visual haikus” set within the domestic space.

Bathroom Door, 2018 © Candice Kwan

Perspectives II, 2015 © Candice Kwan

Eruption, 2019 © Candice Kwan

Milk tooth, 2019 © Candice Kwan

Spilled Rice, 2019 © Candice Kwan