International collection

Since the early 1990s, Wearing has been using photography to explore the processes of the construction of the self, the social norms that define it and its expressive possibilities. A common thread in her works are the participatory element and the use of masks that, concealing identities, allows people to express themselves freely. Since 2000 It was Wearing herself who wore to impersonate her direct family and important people for her personal history, iconic figures in art and photography such as Diane Arbus, Robert Mapplethorpe, Andy Warhol, Claude Cahun, August Sander, Weegee and William Henry Fox Talbot the father of photography, present in the image entered in collection. The artificiality of the portrayed face is betrayed only by the gaze of the artist that, passing through the mask and the camera, reaches the viewer. Through this revelation, Wearing seems to remind us that the image is not an objective representation but a projection, just like the layered identity of an individual.