Sarah Mei Herman

Sarah Mei Herman was born in Amsterdam in 1980. She studied photography at the Royal Academy of Fine Art in The Hague, from which she received her BA in 2005. In 2010 she completed her MA in Fine Art Photography at The Royal College of Art in London. Sarah Mei Herman has received several grants from Mondriaan Fund and Prins Bernard Cultuur Fund. Her work has been shown internationally, among others at The National Portrait Gallery in London and most recently at Le Chateau d’Eau in Toulouse. In 2010 her ongoing series Julian and Jonathan was selected for the Talent issue of Foam Magazine. Sarah Mei is represented by Kahmann gallery in Amsterdam. Today we take a look at her series titled Julian and Jonathan.

Julian and Jonathan

“I started photographing my father Julian and half brother Jonathan in 2005 during a trip to South Africa, my father’s home country, where we visited my (and Jonathan’s) grandmother.
Since that trip I kept on photographing my half brother alone or together with his (and my) father. I’m interested in the triangular relationship between the three of us. My memories as a young child, of the relationship with my father, are now in a way mirrored in my half brother. By photographing Jonathan I try to approach our unusual sibling-relationship which I am part of at a physical distance. This work is very much about me, and this part of my family, as well as the relationship between a relatively older father and his young child.

This summer the three of us went on a second trip to South Africa. During this trip I got the chance to closely observe the relationship between my father and half brother again. I also became aware of the changes in the way Jonathan relates to me, being his adult sister.
Although Jonathan is going through a lot of changes – he is thirteen years old now – the relationship between Julian and Jonathan remains very close.”

To view more of Sarah’s work please visit her website.