In Daddy’s Boy, Renèe Helèna Browne creates an intimate portrait of their Irish homeland, documenting their father as he undertakes tasks around the house and on a rural farm. Browne’s voice-over draws the viewer in as a confidante, introducing elements of narrative from the 1990 sci-fi Jurassic Park and using the character of T-Rex to explore patriarchal dynamics, gender conformity and societal expectations.
The work opens with Browne’s father manoeuvring a digger into position. The pastoral scenery and familial space are witnessed from Browne’s own perspective: a curious donkey sniffs the camera, washing dries in the living room and their father lazes on the couch. Browne’s voice breaks this everyday scene with viscerally violent descriptions from the dystopic thriller Jurassic Park, “A tearing laceration runs from his shoulder down his torso. At the edge of the wound, the flesh is shredded and at the centre, the shoulder is dislocated with pale bone exposed.” The work is punctuated by images of the artist moulding and reshaping a piece of purple plasticine into the form of a dinosaur.
Daddy’s Boy takes its title from a photograph by Phyllis Christopher, first published in the Lesbian Erotica magazine On Our Backs. The image captures an embrace between two people, one bearing a tattoo with the words ‘Daddy’s Boy’ in gothic font. Browne’s Daddy’s Boy examines heteronormative expectations and explores the potential for change. Browne investigates human control over natural impulse, traditional structures and belief systems, and what happens when these are challenged or ruptured. In Jurassic Park, the human-driven experiment begins to deteriorate and eventually descends into chaos. Daddy’s Boy journeys to a similar point of break-down, as the artist’s voice begins to change and distort, and the familiar imagery morphs into abstraction. —Claire Hills
Daddy’s Boy was commissioned for the 16th Berwick Film & Media Arts Festival 2020.
