In Julia Fullerton-Batten’s latest project, Mothers and Daughters, Fullerton-Batten portrays the complex and sometimes challenging relationship between a mother and her daughter. Both documentary and biographical, these images illustrate the artist’s memories of her two sisters' and her relationship with their mother and in turn, their mother’s relationship with their grandmother.

Choosing to work with real mother and daughter pairs in their own environment rather than using models and actors, the subjects create their own world together while at the same time through staging, revive the artist’s personal memories.

This series shows twenty different mother and daughter pairs with their varied, sometimes ultra-sensitive relationships to discuss the fragility and vulnerability of the female exposed within this relationship. Over the course of their lives the reversal of dependence switches from the child’s need for security and nurturing to the mother’s dependence on the daughter to satisfy emotional needs.

In the adult relationship, the intimacy of the bond is established by the love, struggle and acceptance of each other. Between childhood and adulthood, the spectrum of emotions is played out. These images capture the various stages in this special and complicated relationship.