My Father

Created in 2015, shortly before the death of the artist’s father, My Father is a life-size photographic portrait. The work marks a shift from the artist’s earlier engagement with public and ideological imagery toward a radically intimate register. The father is depicted seated on a bed, surrounded by utilitarian objects associated with care, fragility, and physical dependence. The frontal composition and the absence of narrative framing establish an uncompromising proximity, confronting the viewer with a body rendered neither heroic nor symbolic. Bratkov’s photographic language resists sentimentality. The image functions neither as commemoration nor as illustration, but rather as a confrontation with mortality and filial responsibility. The domestic interior becomes a charged space in which private experience acquires broader existential resonance. Presented at life scale, the photograph asserts a physical presence that exceeds representation. The work operates as an encounter, positioning the viewer within a space of ethical tension between exposure and dignity. In this respect, My Father exemplifies Bratkov’s ability to translate personal experience into a rigorously structured visual statement, situated between documentary immediacy and conceptual distance.

Photograph. C-print. Image: 223 × 126 cm. Edition: 3 / Artist’s studio. Present owner.