I have always used self-portrait as a part of my working practice. While the self-portrait is always a double image, a representation of the mirror, my images refer to the memory of the mirror between my mother and myself. Since my mother died, I have become increasingly interested in dismantling the symbiosis of our relationship. Private Life tries to break an insistence on vanity that has insidiously pervaded my self-image, despite my rejection of a similar vanity I saw in my mother. As an only child, I would watch her transform herself before the mirror: purse lips, stick out chest, suck in stomach, in a contorted and tensed rehearsal of beauty. These attempts to enhance her appeal made her the least beautiful. She lacked authenticity and I felt like I was looking at a stranger. On some level, I think that was the point for her. These photographs function to extricate me from my mother as a psychological icon (as they are a circuitous method of becoming removed from and returning to myself.) The title of this body of work is inspired by Barthes parenthesized comment; "The 'private life' is nothing but that zone of space, of time, where I am not an image, an object." For Barthes, being photographed makes the notions of imposture and inauthenticity paramount. This is congruous with the way I saw my mother in the mirror. The difference for me is that in my process of both being photographed and photographing, I achieve my "private life."