Like Father

Like Father is an exploration into the classic trope of disconnect between a father and son;a stereotypical cliché of man and child deprived in understanding and longing for connection through adolescent years, perhaps one-sidedly. Additionally, the project expands the search to the relational dynamics during young adulthood, when a sense of understanding can be formed not of character, but of circumstance.

This project sought to relate family archival imagery to photographs recently taken by myself in an attempt to map and visualize a personal story. The combination of archival and recent imagery intends to create a narrative of juxtaposition as well as mutual relation between two characters. Furthermore, the photographer wishes to explore and understand some of the broader, long-standing issues and themes prevalent amongst a father and son, primarily regarding masculinity, by means of their own experience.

While the personal aspects of Like Father are a work in progress continuing throughout perhaps a lifetime, the series humbly begins at a cottage in Dunchurch, Ontario. The setting depicted serves as a safe ground between the two subjects, where the first and most prominent fatherly teachings occurred and where ideas about present and future manhood were first formed.

Bio

Grayden Kitsemetry is an attempted visual artist working primarily with the photographic medium. His early inspirations stem from a documentary perspective, including photographers such as Alec Soth and Jim Goldberg. Conceptually, Grayden’s work is an outlet dealing with themes of existentialism, consciousness and human existence. Above all, Grayden simply wishes to create.