Gillian Wearing is known for photographs and videos that explore human relationships and social behavior -private, public and personal. Album is a suite of six self-portraits that Wearing made based on old photographs from her family album. In this work, using masks and other paraphernalia, she transformed herself into various members of her family, father, mother, maternal uncle, sister, brother and herself at the age of seventeen. Wearing explains: "I was interested in the idea of being genetically connected to someone but being very different. There is something of me, literally, in all those people - we are connected but we are each very different." The elaborate disguise worn by the artist uncannily serves to reveal aspects of her identity rather than conceal it. (JB)

(Born in Birmingham, England, 1963, and lives in London)

Left: Self-Portrait as my Mother Jean Gregory from Album

2003
gelatin silver print
144.145 x 125.73 x 3.175 cm

Center: Self-Portrait as my Father Brian Wearing from Album

2003
gelatin silver print
167.64 x 129.8575 x 2.8575cm

Right: Self-Portrait as my Sister Jane Wearing from Album

2003
digital print
140.0175 x 114.935 x 3.175cm

The three works above: Collection Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Charles Clifton Fund, 2004
©Gillian Wearing: Courtesy: Maureen Paley, London