Curated by Mort Marsh and Kate Newton
Masquerade includes work by seven women photographers, who explore the boundaries that define portraiture, investigating ways in which women negotiate the traditions; conventions and theories accrued by the medium of photography. These works are being shown alongside pieces specially selected from the Museum and Art Galleries permanent collection to provide new readings and to highlight the similarities and differences of how we look at ourselves and others; today and throughout history.
The show includes Catriona Grant’s seductive portraits of adolescent boys; Kathe Kowalski’s heart rending, unflinchingly honest portraits of her mother’s battle with Alzheimer’s; Trish Morrissey’s challenge to the constructed feminine with her WWM series; Beth Yarnelle Edwards’ saturated images of American suburban life; Magali Nougarede’s exploration of middle class values in relation to the lives of women encountered during the artist’s repeated walks along the seaside at Eastbourne and Sarah Pucill’s black and white self-portraits which play with the frame and its boundaries alongside the complexities of gaze between the viewer and the subjects as well as the mutual gaze of the women within the frame. Miranda Walker’s close up images of Statuettes of the Virgin Mary show the faces of all women not only the iconic vision of motherhood normally associated with her.
