Miyako Ishiuchi uses methods of representation, that memorialize her subjects in her series Mother’s. Ishiuchi deprives her photographic works of colour in turn disassociates the subject from its original context and meanings, creating a degenerate copy of the real trace.

Ishiuchi’s close cropping of her mother’s ageing body, further removing us from the subject despite its intimate nature. Photographs are characterised their ‘dynamical connection both with the individual object, on the one hand, and with the senses of memory of the person for whom it serves as a sign, on the other‘s.”1 The images flatten the subject and emphasise the transitory nature of light and shadow enabling a ghostly transference of the remnants of her mother. the subject matter is based directly on the photographing of objects and accessories of the human body to document the trace of her mother’s life. 

Refer to: http://lhoaglund.com/behind-things-left-behind-ishiuchi-miyako (Retrieved: March 25, 2019)

Notes:

 1. Gibbons, Joan. Contemporary Art and Memory: Images of Recollection and Remembrance (London: I.B Tauris & Co Ltd, 2007), 33 

Illustrations:

https://www.klinebooks.com/pages/books/44568/ishiuchi-miyako-photography/miyako-ishiuchi-yokosuka-story-apartment-endless-night-1-9-4-7-1906-to-the-skin-mothers-signed (Retrieved: 12/03/2019)