Have you ever escaped from a shipwrecked life?

Have you ever escaped from a shipwrecked life?
This project, this exploration of a journey, a journey of the ‘self’, has many facets. I have chosen to explore the concept of ‘the person’, self-identity and the individual by focusing on collective and shared memories and shared experiences.
Through consciousness, memory and history, I have began to unravel this complexstory and have begun confirm my own identity. The memory of my intimate story, as
author and topic, is therefore validation of my identity.
This is also a search for a ‘belonging’, self knowledge and truth, a collective identification with the friends I have shared my life with and society as a whole.
I have focused on portraiture as the vehicle to explore my ideas, each portrait represents a ‘seminal’ individual, someone who has been a massive part of my life and has influenced the way I think and behave.
Some of these individuals I have know all my life, some, just a few years. The text which accompanies each portrait (I have enclosed one example ‘Spencer’) sheds light on the co-relation between individuals, and the values that I associate with friendship, tolerance, trust, empathy, and above all compassion.
I have met some of the most important people in my life in situations as mundane as waiting for a bus and I have always thought this an interesting allegory for life’s journey. Some people get on the bus with you, some get on after, many leave at different destinations, some stay with you till the termination.
This body of work is part of a continuation which will eventually include twenty images each with text and in book format. Slave-unit © 2005