Tiffany Wang, 23, from Taiwan explores her relationship with her father through photography. She uses this medium to revisit her past and present life by reconstructing a future in her series Frames of My Father. Uncovering a persona through meaningful objects and settings and reinterpreting them through her own art forms, Tiffany uses each photo such as a journal entry.
Frames of My Father
uses photography to share the intimate affair between father and daughter while embracing the boundaries of images, textiles and colours. After growing up with a rocky paternal relationship, the photographer uses her camera as a task of puzzling together the missing pieces. While he would share his past, this would be a step forward to forging a relationship, using her lens to depict her father through a new angle. When spending three weeks in Taiwan with her father, this became the bridge unifying the two family members. This series allows Tiffany Wang to dive into her ancestry, and more specifically herself.
Evidence on paper
This artist weaves personal traits of her father into these photographs. Here, meanings are merged into her photos, creating a double layer of significance and existence. Between the photo itself and the origin of the print, this artwork has a multitude of substance where the ingredients are nostalgia, emotions and memories. Each texture and material has a meaning. For example, the use of fabric? “My Father had been working in a clothes factory for most of his life“, she exclaims. This artist puts unique thought and process into her creations: “I alternate using brown kraft paper, rice paper and muslin. I left the edges rough like those on my fathers bible, or his old stack of photographs“. From collecting a number of objects of her father, the photographer built a relationship, focusing on his red covered bible, calligraphy letter and obsession with incense. These items had a cultural significance, allowing an insight not only into the father-daughter relationship, but also into Taiwan. These culturel and traditional aspects are outlined through the uses of calligraphy and Buddhism. Also green, yellow and reddish tones, common in Taiwan’s culture and once again, overlapping with her fathers interests with earthy and organic colours. Finally, this photographer weaves elements of her fathers life into her own, just like the beloved textiles that run throughout this series.
Photos by © Tiffany Wang
