Tuner Prize winner Gillian Wearing is a master of disguise. These silicone masks and costumes are uncanny! With her varied, oeuvre-spanning show now open at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery in Chelsea, we’re drawn to her tribute self-portraits as idols Andy Warhol, Diane Arbus, and Robert Mapplethorpe. Wearing has also recreated photos of her mother, her brother, and herself as a three-year-old child with unsettling authenticity. She calls it “liberating.”
For her new video piece Secrets and Lies, Wearing liberated others by posting an open-call online and recording the intimate confessions of strangers hidden under grotesque masks. Check out some of the artist’s best disguises, starting with this portrait of doll-like supermodel Lily Cole wearing a chipped Lily Cole mask. How meta!
As Lily Cole. Courtesy of Gillian Wearing
Me as Warhol in Drag with Scar. Courtesy of Gillian Wearing
Me as Mapplethorpe and Me as Arbus. Courtesy of Gillian Wearing
Self Portrait as My Sister Jane Wearing. Courtesy of Gillian Wearing
Self Portrait as My Brother. Courtesy of Gillian Wearing.
Self Portrait as My Mother Jean Gregory. Courtesy of Gillian Wearing
Self Portrait at Sixteen. Courtesy of Gillian Wearing
Self-Portrait at Three Years Old. Courtesy of Gillian Wearing
Self-Portrait as My Uncle. Courtesy of Gillian Wearing
Secrets and Lies (Still). Courtesy of Gillian Wearing