Nicholas Costopoulos

Lives and works in Boston, MA, USA

Artist statement

Coming Home Again and Again was to be an unexacting photographic documentary chronicling my mother’s dementia diagnosis, but became much more. During its evolution, the project dissociated into volumes reshaping into a personal examination of self identity. The first volume Caregiver, being presented here, meditates the changes and effects my mother’s illness has produced in our relationship and to the home we’ve created over the past fifty years. During my observations and caregiving in the past five years, I have explored religion through her eyes which has lead me to question my long held spiritual beliefs. My further observations lead me to ponder my beliefs on the aging process and dementia. A process that intertwines nostalgia, love, emotional connections, life and death, and, most importantly, strong family bonds that I have been so lucky to possess. I reexamined the objects of my childhood home, item I took for granted, and saw them in a different light. Objects of personal identity, trophies to the self for overcoming struggle and obstacles or items created from the rawest of materials transformed into beautiful and useful handcrafts. In tearing down bathrooms, kitchens, and bedrooms to build a safe environment for my mother, I began to see the beauty in the old weathered and cracked finishes and dated items that may not be of use now, but they still have a history, a meaning and a purpose to our family, their purpose different now, than in my younger, more naive...

Artwork