Trish Morrissey at CLOSE: Solo Show

We are delighted to present this solo exhibition by acclaimed artist Trish Morrissey, bringing together photographic work from her well-known series Front (2005-2007), Psycho Beach (2008-2010) The Failed Realist (2011) and The Successful Realist (2017), alongside new works which have their first showing here at CLOSE Gallery.

Morrissey’s multi-award winning short film Eupnea (2023), takes us on a surreal journey through life, death, loss, longing and maternal desire, one breath, one heartbeat at a time. Winning the Best Artist’s Short at this year's Berlin Indie Film Festival, Eupnea has continued its success at multiple national and international film festivals.

Trish Morrissey was born in Dublin, Ireland and now lives and works in Somerset. Her practice combines performance, photography, and film, using a process of archival research as well as her own biography in order to develop and play real and fictional characters, exploring the roles of women, the family and the body. 

The work is deeply sensitive and offers a subtle dialogue around first-hand experiences throughout the milestones of growing up, noting stories told or interpreted through family photographs and histories both past, present and ongoing. There is a quirky humour edging on squeamish subject matter which creates a sense of tension and suspension. Here we see an artist collaborating with family and communities to produce an inclusive whole experience. She achieves this through astute observations of human behaviour and attention to detail, a precise master of composition, she interprets and sets theatrical dramatic scenarios for us to decode.

Many of the artist’s works are held in public and private collections including the Victoria and Albert Museum, London; Michael Wilson Centre for Photography, London; Martin Parr Foundation, Bristol; Gösta Serlachius Fine Arts Foundation, Finland; and the Bohusläns Museum, Sweden. 

The artist’s most recent and critically acclaimed exhibition ‘Autofictions: Twenty Years of Photography and Film’, which toured Photo Museum, Ireland; Impressions Gallery, Bradford and Serlachius Museum, Finland was listed in The Guardian’s top 10 photographic exhibitions of 2023. We welcome you to delve deeper into Morrissey's work with the fully-illustrated ‘Autofictions’ catalogue, available in the CLOSE Studio. As well as a new critical text by writer and curator Hettie Judah which you can read by following the link below.