Gillian Wearing was born in 1963 in Birmingham, England. After settling in London in 1983, she studied at the Chelsea School of Art and Goldsmiths College, University of London, earning a BFA in 1990. City Racing in London hosted her first solo exhibition in 1993. In her photographs and videos, Wearing records the confessions and interactions of ordinary people she befriends through chance encounters. Her work explores the differences between public and private life, the individual and society, voyeurism and exhibitionism, and fiction and fact. In its candor and psychological intensity, Wearing’s work extends the traditions of photographic portraiture initiated by August Sander, Walker Evans, and Diane Arbus. Likewise, her oeuvre may be understood as an art-world harbinger of reality television.
Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say (Work towards world peace.)
1992-3
Me as Arbus, 2008
Me as Warhol in Drag with Scar, 2010
Me as Cahun Holding a Mask of My Face, 2012
Self Portrait of Me Now in Mask, 2010
Me As Mask, 2013
Album, 2003, exhibition view