Family
Family depicts multiple generations of Rolfe’s family: she stands in the foreground holding a pair of ghostly family photographs, while her son is perched on the windowsill and her husband lurks in the doorway. The Holocaust appears as a dark undercurrent in the work. As a young woman in Berlin, Rolfe’s mother Ilse was an active member of the Communist Party and the German Resistance. She was arrested and spent three years in concentration camps before being released on the condition that she leave Germany immediately. Born in London a year after the Second World War ended, Rolfe herself is part of the so-called ‘Second Generation’. This unconventional family portrait conveys her uneasiness as both daughter and mother, dealing with the traumatic legacy of the Holocaust. The liminal spaces of windows and doors become a metaphor for her dual role in the family, while the figures’ gazes staring out of the painting create an immediate confrontation with the viewer.
