Helen McGhie
Manchester, Manchester, UK
Helen McGhie is based in Manchester (UK) and graduated from the Royal College of Art (MA Photography) in 2014 where she explored the relationship between femininity, performance and physical space.
Exhibitions include Sluice 2015 (Bargehouse, London), Penumbra (APT Gallery, London) and Hello Future! Talent's Archive (Onassis Cultural Centre, Athens). She is winner of this year’s British Women Artists competition (2016), was awarded The Worshipful Company of Painter-Stainers Prize for Photography (2014) and nominated for the Magnum Graduate Photographers Award 2015. Publications include The Sunday Times Magazine (Nov 2014) and Science and Fiction, Black Dog Publishing (2014).
2016 - Winner, British Women Artists competition, 2015 - Nominated, The Magnum Graduate Photographers Award, 2015 - Winner, Noise Festival Curator's Choice, 2014 - Winner,The Worshipful Company of Painters-Stainers, 2014 - Shortlisted, Deutsche Bank Fine Art Award
- Architecture
- Arts
- Interior
- Portrait
- Still life
- Video capture
- Video editing
(M)other
Helen McGhie
The work explores an analogy between the body of the Mother, the figure of the 'Monstrous Female' and the interior of a worn English house. Here, photographs of sun-drenched wallpaper and spider webs alongside the visceral surface of the ageing female body become subjects of fascination. The physical security of home is called into question, where leaking ceilings and darkened corners suggest the embodiment of an un-named or unknowable fear. Imperfections in shadowy vein riddled skin present the maternal body as being at once haunted and as the site of nurture.