Cast back
in the memory banks and name one western
mythological
figure, Greek, Roman, Religious Icon
or one western work of art, pre 1960,
statue or painting of a pregnant women, (except the Arnolfini).
Now
why? Why when perhaps
the most important and mostly inevitable event in
the life of a woman goes unmarked, unrecorded, ignored.
A male conspiracy? The ultimate male jealousy?
Or possibly a guarded and secret preserve of female power?
Most strange, and like the event itself, beyond total
emotional and rational comprehension. There is not one
single event in my life that is so large and powerful.
The person I love most who transforms herself and by
a process of pain, violence, wonder and physical joy,
this one loved person divides herself and becomes two.
She, just before birth, has all the beauty of shape,
sexuality, mythical meaning, humour and promise
of immediate and inevitable change.
Observed, so beautiful, such heroic sensuality.
I can only speculate how the person herself is
dealing with this division of self, this imminent
and painful baptism of change - such courage.
Unexperienced hormones released on a massive scale,
often out of balance and to be reconciled.
A body, their body, which changes into a primal
form, foreign, temporal, still sexual?
To be adored and simultaneously locked away.
The loss of privacy, those sensual and secret
parts become public domain and at the same
time are expected to perform the impossible,
stretch to emit this 8 pound pomegranate.
But it is the emotional knowledge and awareness
that performs the most change.
The chance to create this totally unique
and wondrous new life that is, yes,
totally dependent on you for life, for growth,
for possibility. Such big stuff. So thus began
these visual narratives, private dialogues between
me and one other, made over a period of 16 years,
and now made, in part, public.
The women are all my friends, one my partner
and mother of my two children.
Sometimes the images are irreverent,
narratives which explore the humour and
ludicrousness of it all, some deal with mythology
and dabble and transform art history.
Each are very personal, exploring our
friendships as well as the physical state,
each demand from photography a very
different 'photographic' solution.
Most of the images, like much of my work,
are very physical; the image tactile.
Six of my friends photographed
gave birth the following day.
David Buckland February 2001
Examples
of David Buckland's work
from The Focus Gallery