A Thing To Hide
Artist’s book: concertina book of seventeen etchings on Hahnemuhle paper, 2017
A Thing To Hide explores identity through post-memory in a series of etching states made in reaction to an unspoken narratives of mental illness.
Along with four hand drawn text plates, the concertina book consists of picture plates, sized roughly 6” x 4”, which are abstracted from family portraits through a litany of etching processes. The resulting images were made into a book modeled on the photo album, referencing a history of vernacular and focalised self perception through the family community.
In the deterioration of each photograph, the collective identity of the family is integrated with that of the individual as the chosen photographs highlight accepted narratives and silence others. The repetition of proof taking is here used to represent the cycle of hereditary isolation that builds when the experience of mental illness is condemned to remain a thing to hide.
The text was adapted from an original short story, and can be read here
Photographs: Rory Gillen