Deborah Crowley

This is a series of photographs taken in collaboration with my mother, Victoria Crowley, the artist. After six decades of marriage to my father, my mother became a widow. Two years later, she suffered an amputation of her right leg below the knee.

My father was in his 90th year when he died. That he would die at that great age is the natural order of things, to be expected. That my mother would lose a limb was not.

In creating this series of photographs, I mean to portray the many strands of grief and loss and, ultimately, the story of a woman who has not simply overcome the double loss of grief and amputation but of a woman, who despite tragedy, lives her life on her own terms, deeply independent and remaining vital, with a strong life force.

The images are presented alongside a limited-edition publication incorporating an original poem by Victoria Crowley, extending the work beyond individual photographs to form a layered meditation on memory, love, and the evolving nature of identity.