Mood board
About
Gillian Wearing was born in 1963 in Birmingham, England. In Wearing’s photographs and videos she records the confessions and interactions of ordinary people she befriends through chance encounters. Her work explores the differences between many things such as; public and private life, the individual and society, voyeurism and exhibitionism, and fiction and fact.
The work that I plan on focusing on is her masked photographs. In these images, she uses prosthetic masks to alter her appearance, showing how we hide away our identity.
Why I chose the artist
I chose this Wearing as an artist since I plan to display how we hide our emotions during games, showcasing what is commonly known as a ‘poker face’ which is an inscrutable face that reveals no hint of a person’s thoughts or feelings.
In order to achieve this i would masks, while they may not be as detailed or high quality as Wearings due to cost efficiency, they would symbolize how we hide our emotions and allow the viewer to take a more tactical look towards the games we play.
Image analysis
In this image we are able to see the prosthetic mask protruding from the mirror frame, creating a rather unique effect. The fact that we are still able to see her human eyes behind the mask could mean that we often hide our true selves behind false faces, only presenting the parts of ourselves that we deem worthy or perfect to the world in the same way a prosthetic is perfect.
I would definitely like to incorporate the use of mirrors into my own photographs since the idea of refection is a key part in Wearings photographs. I especially like how she incorporated only the mirror frame in this image though, making it gold and shiny in order to draw attention to it and link it with her eyes which are the only other glossy part.
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