Phil and Grants Waterbirth, 2009-2013
Digital C-type prints
50 x 50 cm

These images bring together Phil and Grant demonstrating brotherly support during Phil’s labour. In one image Phil is in excruciating pain alone, in the next Grant assists Phil during his water birth. Birtles re-appropriates the celebrities portraits taken from moments of turmoil on the square. Phil’s facial expression now accompanies the body of a female in labour. The images work to subvert and challenge the photographic ‘truth’ in portraiture through the application of a new narrative and gender.  

Extremities of emotions is frequently dealt with in Birtles’ practice, here she draws parallel between moments of child birth agony with the emotional journey of Phil seconds before he shouts “GET OUT MY GAF!” and “ YOU WANT THE ARCHES, AV IT” whilst Grant contemplates a recent love affair. 

Utilising both digital and analogue methods, Birtles subjects the resulting photographs to a series of interventions including, gestural marking, obscurement of details, defacement of the print and collaging.  

The thugs of Walford Square transform their rage into a legitimate narrative for pain.