The present at Lismore Castle Arts in Eire consists of three of Collier’s self-portraits centred on the improvement and show of print pictures. Creating Tray #2 (Gray) and Lower function her personal eye as topic materials in the darkroom, whereas Eye (Comfortable Contours) is a picture of a photobook, Collier’s pupil enlarged and piercing. Eye #1 options the artist holding a small print of her personal eye, her arm rising from the base of the work so as to add an additional layer of self-reflexiveness.
Collier’s choice to make use of her personal physique in the photos lifts them from conceptualism to one thing extra affective. If, on the one hand, eyes are important devices of the photographic course of – only one system amongst many in the artist’s toolbox – they’re additionally portals of emotion and ageing. Though Collier detaches and isolates her eyes from the remainder of her physique in the photos, their ‘wanting’ again at the viewer is an invite right into a world of hypothesis. Instantly we surprise what these eyes (and our personal) have seen or missed. To be with these works – every made between 2009 and 2014 – is to witness and ponder time’s passing; to ruminate and recollect through the artist’s diaristic organ.
This mix of technicality and affection has outlined Collier’s work for over 20 years, holding it between idea and confession. Collier’s 2014 solo present at the Museum of Modern Artwork Chicago included works that immediately reference the artist’s late mother and father, an specific name to replicate on loss. Michael Darling, who curated the present, remarked that Collier leads viewers “to this precipice of mourning and psychological frailty”, an artist deeply in contact with worry, anger, despair and guilt – feelings all current in her photos of self-help cassette tapes from 2002, which had been included in Chicago.
