Artist Statement: Flowering Dogwood
This zine is a visual meditation on fatherhood—what it gives, takes, and leaves behind. Through photographs, I trace the quiet, often unspoken spaces where love, loss, and legacy meet. Each image is a fragment of memory, a reflection of growth, and a dialogue with the past.
Fatherhood exists in a duality: a role filled with deep love and protection but also shaped by inherited pain and silence. This work explores that tension. It confronts the generational echoes of trauma while seeking moments of tenderness, vulnerability, and healing. These photos are not just about being a father but about slowly, imperfectly, and intentionally becoming one.
Growth is nonlinear in this context. It comes in stillness, repetition, and rupture. Reflection is not just looking back but actively re-seeing—questioning the roles we’ve inherited, the patterns we repeat, and the futures we want to shape.
This zine is for anyone who’s ever tried to break a cycle, to rewrite their story, or to build something softer from something hard. It’s about the weight of family and the grace of trying anyway.
