My Dad Never Came Back with the Milk
Mixed Media on Canvas / Digital Collage / Acrylic & Found Materials
2022
“A portrait of absence, memory, and what lingers when someone leaves.”
What Disappears and What Remains
This piece examines the emotional residue of abandonment, especially through the lens of fatherlessness. It’s not just about a missing person it’s about the rituals that were never formed, the words left unsaid, and the stories we build to fill in the silence.
The title carries cultural weight a phrase that’s become internet shorthand for paternal absence but behind the humor is a very real wound. This piece leans into that duality. It asks: What does it mean to be shaped by someone who wasn’t there? How do we carry absence? And how do we reframe that loss as part of our own becoming?
Making Meaning From Absence
This piece didn’t start with a sketch it started with a feeling I’d avoided for years. I wanted to tell the truth, but I also wanted to protect myself. So I began layering. I used plaster to represent emotional weight. I painted over sections multiple times just like we rewrite memory. I left parts raw and unresolved, because not everything has closure.
The milk carton became a recurring symbol. Simple, everyday. But loaded. It became shorthand for everything I didn’t get to say to him. Each mark was a decision to tell my story without needing his permission to do so.
I Am Not What I Lost
Finishing this piece felt like exhaling something I’d held in for years. There’s no neat resolution in this story no return, no explanation, no apology. But there’s truth. And in that truth, I found power. This work isn’t just about absence it’s about the legacy of silence, the kind of silence that shapes how you see yourself, your worth, your relationships. For a long time, I thought I had to carry that absence quietly, like it was my fault, or worse, something I should forget. But painting this helped me realize that naming the wound is part of healing it.
The milk carton is a metaphor, yes but it’s also literal. It’s the excuse so many of us grew up hearing, the shorthand for abandonment. But by turning it into art, I took back control of the story. I gave that carton weight, presence, and voice. I made it stay. This piece reminds me that sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is speak the truth even when it’s uncomfortable. Especially when it’s uncomfortable. I may never get the closure I wanted, but through this work, I gave that lost version of myself the visibility she deserved.
