Drunk Dad - by Jeff Bark (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

First monograph of the celebrated American photographer Jeff Bark. A book about addiction, masculinity, trauma and the implosion of the American Dream.

Jeff Bark's Drunk Dad is a deeply intimate monograph in which he presents unbridled addiction. Not as spectacle, but as a beautiful escape. Shaped by memory and longing, and by a learned idea of masculinity that resists softness while quietly demanding it. Working alone, the photographer transformed his backyard garage into a filmic, Lynchian stage, hand building masterfully lit sets and unflinching still lives. The wonderment of Disney and the loneliness of Hopper inform the photos shot on location in and around his hometown in northern Minnesota. Each image feels like a fragment of a story - at once painfully honest and hauntingly ambiguous - inviting viewers to piece together the emotional landscape of a father's unraveling. The implosion of the American dream is palpable in almost every image.

Review Quotes

"Jeff Bark's elaborately composed scenes channel sundered American fantasies. They also function as personal folklore."

--Chris Wiley "The New Yorker"

About the Author

Jeff Bark is an American photographer whose moody, meticulously staged images bridge the traditions of grand manner painting and Surrealist narrative. His photography has been shown in galleries around the world and in such Museums as Kunsthalle Wien and Palazzo delle Esposizioni.