“Dad” a series by Aneta Bartos

The series is my attempt to capture childhood memories focusing on my father. He has lived all of his 70 years in a small city in Poland and has been shaped by its culture, rural lifestyle, and decades under communist rule. Since he was a young man, he’s strutted proudly in his habitat displaying his sculpted body – a gentle giant, a man unmotivated by greed and always true to his principles.

Visiting him and being in his presence takes me back to my youth, to what felt like an endless stretch of days in a worry-free world anchored by my powerful and loving father. I reflect on how his commitment to education, fitness, organic food, and simplicity of basic living has kept him so young and full of vitality. These images represent phantoms of the past, but are living and captured in the present. My father is steadfast and consistent, the embodiment of stability and strength.

The sentiment of my youth remain. I can still smell the meadows, hear the forest, swim in the lake, and see the outline of the figure of eternal love nearby.

Text and photo Aneta Bartos