Gillian Wearing is a conceptual artist that works conceptually with photography and film. Born in 1963 in Birmingham, she moved to London in ’83 and attended Chelsea school of art and Goldsmiths college, securing her first solo exhibition in 1993; she is also part of the Young British Artists.
Her work focuses on the connection and differences between public and private as well as the voyeurism and exhibitionism that accompanies it; she has described her work as “editing life”.

One of her earliest works “dancing in Peckham” shows the artist dancing in the busy south London shopping centre, you can see passer by reactions whether they be indifferent or confused. Wearings dancing is clearly instinctive, she is moving exactly how she feels without a care for opinion. However, even though wearings movements are confident and energetic there is still an element of sadness that seeps through , the dynamic between her and the public feels lonely and disconnected.

This made me consider the power within a single person as the focus of video work, i feel like it injects a level of softness as if without the backing of interaction the subject is singled out in their experience. It also emphasises the idea that power is confronting and not diluted down by the inclusion of others; highlighting the isolated nature of a power trip.

In her other works such as “Album series” and “Confess all on video” she utilises masks to enact a certain level of privacy and performance. The album series involves her using realistic masks of her family members to occupy someone else’s identity, it questions how much of someone do we actually see. In the confession series she asks people to confess a secret, whether that be a crime or something that has happened to them. However they are all wearing a mask that completely hides their identity. These masks almost allow people to be more themselves as their actions arent tied to our physical facial identity ,as if they are inhabiting a role of telling a story truthfully without consequence.

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This influenced me to layer the audio of innermost thoughts during the experience of a power trip. I feel the use of a mask can distort reality and create privacy in a way that the subject can fully express themselves and reveal what goes on backstage in their reality. The exposure of privacy in wearings work connected to my theme as i feel power trips are a time in which you release thoughts that are usually intended to be suppressed.