Ways to Disappear

A powerful visual meditation on memory and loss, captured through a wry and whimsical world of comic disguises, sly references, and a hand-built mythology of the artist's creation

Shortly before his grandmother's passing, photographer Jonathan Hollingsworth and his mother discovered a resplendent 1950s blue satin dress hanging alone in an upstairs closet of his grandmother's Ohio home. On a lark, Hollingsworth insisted that his mother wear the dress for a picture, which she did, but only while holding a pot of African violets in front of her face, unwittingly setting the tone for the photographic series to follow.

During the first summer that Hollingsworth's grandmother did not join the family at their generations-old cottage on Lake Michigan, he insisted that his mother bring the blue dress for a series of pictures that would span seven summers. The dress became a proxy for his grandmother and her loss, but in time the series evolved, exploring the universal elements of mortality, grief, and the slow-motion disappearing act of every human life.

The compromise for photographing the artist's mother, who is a deeply private person with an aversion to cameras, was to obscure or disguise her in most of the images. The photographs became increasingly staged, with handmade props and costumes that referenced other famous disappearances found in Shakespearen tragedy, fairy tales, Greek mythology, Old Hollywood, silent films, and Theatre of the Absurd. The series also references other iconic, elusive women including Joan Didion, Amelia Earhart, "Little Edie" Bouvier Beale, Joni Mitchell, and Isadora Duncan. In Ways to Disappear, elements of play and whimsy work in a stunning interplay with loss and grief, resonating with the viewer long after the final page.