(HER) BERT . 2017
Night Shift’s subject and protagonist is the artist’s grandmother, a war widow who took to work as a weaver in a mill. By night she turned her labour into creation, approximating Dior and Molyneux dress designs in paper patterns on a mannequin in her kitchen. Dressmaking was a way for this woman to connect with illusory and remote visions, a place where she could channel loss and yearning through projections of beauty and hope. The mannequin became the self’s double, an alter-ego and a ghost, all in one.
Josh Lilley Gallery
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