It's a very traditional thing to do, I know, painting one's parents, but I think it could be a lot more than just that – their predicament, their lack of fulfillment, the desperate-not-knowing what they could have had out of life. And their relationship with me.
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Maggi Hambling
Father, Late December 1997 (1997)
Tate
© Maggi Hambling. All Rights Reserved 2020 / Bridgeman Images
When people die who one is close to, they go on being alive. It was the same with my father: I went on painting my father laughing, long after he was dead.
My work has always dealt with the autobiographical. In the 1990s I became a mother and I became interested in this idea of transmission. How do you pass on to your children culture and tradition?
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Zineb Sedira
Mother Tongue (2002)
Tate