Spectator Magazine Review
Through the Eyes Of The Child Mother, Mother documents the disintegration of
a parent to Alzheimer's BY LISA MORPHEW The first pictures you see when
perusing Mother, Mother, an exhibition of photographs by Lisa Morphew, were
snapped before the artist was born. One is of a tiny, wary pixie with a
gentleman, presumably Morphew's grandfather. The other is of a young woman
descending a staircase, hatted and elegantly stylish. Though developed
long ago by other photographers, these portraits are necessary for what
follows. Morphew's mother succumbed to Alzheimer's, and her disintegration
is bluntly documented here in a collection of photos that requires the
representation of the woman who existed before the disease began its
destruction. The foremost series depicts Morphew's mother and a woman who
seems to be a caretaker undergoing the process of dressing. Most are nudes,
starting with "Dorothy's Room," in which every surface imaginable is hidden
by fabric except for the woman who stands with her back to the camera, a bra
pointed toward us at her waist as she works on the clasp in front of her. In
"Say Hello Dorothy," she giggles in a shower, playing at concealing herself
with a towel while laughing at being caught. Her face is creased with age,
but as she beams, she looks not like an elderly woman, but like a child --
maybe this is the smile the lass in the early photo would have given had she
not been so leery of the camera. Any shyness or caution is gone now, and she
poses and mugs without fear. In one photo, she impersonates Eleanor
Roosevelt, with the aid of a floppy shower cap; in another, she peers out
wild-eyed and wild-haired with comb in hand. There are diversions from the
silliness that pervades most of this section; "Biopsy" combines a composed
glance at the camera with a tangle of sutures taped shut on her breast. The
dressing pictures retain life. While she seems to have reverted to childhood
(it's impossible for us, unacquainted with the woman captured, to know if
allowing herself to be photographed nude and in the act of grooming is
something that would have been permitted before the onset of affliction),
she is vigorous and energetic, full of movement and humor. For "I Want My
Car Back," clad only in shower cap and white socks, she's turned a
floral-print chair into the driver's seat and scowls out at the camera. Her
eyebrows are knit and her mouth skewed down, but it's somehow self-aware,
the pretense of anger rather than the actuality of it. Round a corner, and
things change. "Nursing Home Ride" is an uneasy glimpse into what's to come,
as she's pushed down a shadowy corridor, her feet bare and cold, protruding
from beneath the blankets that cover her lap, as a nurse shifts away from
the lens. "My Mother's Gone" echoes the text in a coloring book we see over
her shoulder; blue-crayoned deer lament the loss of a parent in a story that
will inevitably result in a joyous reunion once the page is turned. It's
more than we can hope for. We know how this story will end but can still be
stunned by the progression of the sickness. In succeeding images, she's
dwarfed in a hospital bed, overwhelmed by the linens, and handrails resemble
bars of a cage from which the prisoner lacks the strength to attempt to
escape. The vivacity of previous pictures is gone; there's no charming of
the lens here, and it's hard to say if there's always an awareness of it.
Most touching is the detail of her hands. As she regards the camera with the
same suspicion she showed as a child, our eyes are drawn to the perfect
manicure that brightens her nails. Unavoidably, it continues, and the merry
woman disappears, substituted by one subdued by tubes entering her nose,
hands twisted painfully like barren branches, bones visible. For
"Starvation," the woman seems to be gone completely, replaced by a mass of
bone barely surrounded by skin. These are disturbing pictures, and we may
question their need. We can't speak for her cognizance in the initial
pattern, but the subject seems to be beyond the capacity of choice by the
end, and these images could be interpreted as an invasion of privacy. The
last photograph, like the first, is not taken by the artist but makes her
motivations clear. Morphew's mother deteriorates in her hospital bed,
oblivious to the camera, oblivious seemingly to everything. Morphew herself
sits with her and confronts the camera's gaze with the fury her mother no
longer possesses. The four walls of images we've walked through have come
full circle, traveling from this woman's beginnings to her end, and while
they effectively portray the plundering of illness, the individual herself
has not been obscured by the disease.