Please forgive the sombre subject matter in my art. Although a serious and deep person, I do have a sense of humour and enjoy the lighter side of life too.
It seems that my first three projects are about grief, loss, death. So far, all of my projects are personal and involve myself and my family. I was brought up with a very strong sense of family, which if you look at my father’s history, you would understand. ( See -My father’s land) We were a family unit with little or no contact with our extended family. The circumstances of my being childless and with no family of my own, have caused a deep grief. I have been lucky to move on from my personal grief and I have returned to Art. However, my grief pales to nothing, in comparison to my father’s history, who was a refugee after the war and returned by the British to be put to death by the Communists. He survived because he was still a child and then later escaped, but has effectively lost his whole family. as he could never return.
I am interested in using performance with photography to create empathy in others. My 20’s and 30’s were spent working as an Occupational Therapist in Mental Health, working with people who had severe and enduring mental health problems. It makes sense that looking at empathy is an important factor in my art. I normally start off my projects with no idea of how to develop a subject. The ideas come as I research or when I start photographing.
Tina Reid-Peršin 