Linda Ford

Self-Discipline #23

charcoal on onion skin paper

27″ x 28.5″ x 1″

2018

Visiting the Worcester State Hospital (where my father worked during my childhood), as well as my family history of mental illness, has had lasting affects on my preoccupation with bodies that transgress. While working as a video editor for a gay bondage website, I began to conceptually connect the practice of bondage with “swaddling” – which is used to calm and ease anxiety. The self-portraits reference the body’s internalization of trauma. The family portrait collages, juxtapose photographs of my great-grandmothers with hand-rendered self-portraiture elements, creating “Composite Portraits”. I am interested in how intergenerational trauma creates cycles of dis-ease.

@lindafordworks