Fire and Water
It was a big decision for me to take portraits of my parents in the first place. Not because “I had to” or they expected me to, but because I wanted to do it, I REALLY felt like it. It suddenly occurred to me that this is how I viewed them (or better sensed, because I wasn’t consciously thinking about them this way ever) t.
Mom has always been full of energy, both productive and distractive. The fast and the furious. She was the “fire” in my life: she could keep me warm, but she could really burn me at times. Saying it in the past tense, because I describe my childhood perspective of things, and frankly, my childhood, the psychological one, lasted for too long. Only now do I feel like finally have grown up and have become disconnected from all the past emotions, traumas, fears, expectations, and hopes that little Dasha had. My mom is the hero of my life and I really want to state that with this portrait. She’s strong, powerful, fearless. She endured and still does much pain in her life, but that didn’t and doesn’t brake her. She gave me the fuel and the courage to do many things in life, both genetically and by her own example, and for that I’m endlessly grateful. I really feel that the color and the vertical lines in the background reflect the strength, assertiveness, and energy that I have always seen in her.
My dad has always been a quintessence of calm and emotional control. I never, and I mean NEVER even once, saw him getting angry or bitter about anything in life. He always seemed steady and stable, and even boring and lacking change, and cold sometimes. He could stop any fire and heal any burn with his relaxed coolness. I didn’t appreciate it much, when growing up, but later in life the stillness that he transferred to me paid off immensely. I wouldn’t be who I am today if I never took a more grounded, cold, calm, and controlled view of life situations I’ve faced. I am hugely grateful to have inherited this part from my father. I tried to convey the cool and calm stillness of my father’s soul through the horizontal lines, absence of details, and the color palette, which is comprised of various shades of blue and grey.
I almost cried when editing the works. Finally accepting my parents as people, not as gods that they have always seemed to me when I was a child. I didn’t want to make them prettier, I didn’t want to retouch too much. The portraits are about acceptance. They are being themselves and I am accepting them as they are. And accepting myself through this process.
Dad
Mom
