loving a memory, hating what surrounds it
This is a difficult painting, I painted this from a photograph I took in the summer of 1999. I was 12 at the time this photograph was taken. Below is some text I wrote when I first created the painting.
It’s my dad, floating in our backyard pool in Westmead. Thinking about it now, I can still feel the hot concrete on the soles of my feet, and the chlorine up my nose.
We never called him Dad though. Always Maciek.
Our relationship is complicated. There were a lot of moments that didn’t feel safe. But this was one of the good ones. The kind you hold onto, even if it doesn’t tell the whole story. Maybe I can be forgiven for trying to rewrite the past a little? Is a revisionist history always a bad thing?
Making this felt strange. Sitting with a memory that’s both real and selective. I could feel myself wanting to protect it, and question it at the same time. I feel so fucking weird. I both adore and hate this artwork. Maybe that makes it good? I don’t know.
It was as heavy to create as I expected, but also strangely calming. I had to sit with the existence of a time, without trying to fix or resolve it. After all, there is no changing the past, but maybe we can look at it through kinder eyes.
I am sharing this again now because my dad is dying.
My mum and sister recently went to Poland to visit him and asked me to come. Honestly, I couldn’t think of anything I would like to do less. I will hold onto this memory of him, but I also know we will never resolve the past. He can’t, or won’t, acknowledge the things he’s done. And it doesn’t help that other people forgive him without that acknowledgement. I think, though, that maybe it’s the only way they know how to cope with someone like him.
My sister tells me he misses me. I told her that I wrote him letters, asking him to just say he was sorry, countless letters, starting from when I was 16 to 30 - but they went unanswered. She didn’t know how many chances I had given him.
All he has to do is say, “I’m sorry.”
That little girl in me deserves so much more than that, but somehow, it is still all I want.
This painting "Maciek, 1999" is available for purchase via Jardan in Perth. If you would like to enquite shoot them an email here: perth@jardan.com.au
