Shaun Pierson - Alvine Road
I remember laying my head in my grandfather’s lap after he had pulled a splinter out of my heel. I remember tracing my mother’s back with race cars after making her cry, guiltily attempting to console her. I remember the many beginnings and ends of relationships, both personal and peripheral-- of people drifting in and out of my life. Some returned and some I never saw again. More than anything, however, I remember a childhood fraught with violence, beauty, and intimacy; a period in which the concept of time proved irrelevant and the smallest moments seemed to last forever.
By interspersing dramatic environmental and classical portraiture, my work examines a complicated relationship to home and the lasting impact that these seemingly innocuous upbringings have on youth as they progress into adulthood.
Drawing from fragmented pieces of my own memory, these photographs utilize members of my family in an effort to further explore the tumultuous nature of my childhood and experiences growing up in a community burdened by a seemingly endless cycle of addiction, abuse, and economic adversity. Through this work, I revisit the half-remembered memories from my childhood in an attempt to further understand myself, resulting in images that touch on subtopics such as childhood trauma, familial intimacy, and the disintegration of relationships.