“Isolation Portraits” by Chris Pig
"Isolation Portraits" is a project developed while in lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic that hit the planet in 2020. Isolation: time to think and rethink, time to reflect and to put things into perspective.
With the absence of most of the inputs we were used to, everything has a more personal and intimate feel. Time to face our fears and visualise them in a different way. Time to express our more intimate thoughts. Our personal world, space and habits were turned upside down, social scales were upturned, and values changed. Lost feelings were found and solitude gave an insight into ourselves, our inner fears and strengths. We were suddenly forced to live differently and a lot of social fluff was taken away overnight leaving us with a clear view of our own reality.
“Each portrait tackles a different social or personal issue as well as expressing my personal opinion visually rather than in words”.
Chris Pig is an Italian photographer, based in London since the early 1990s.
She has grown up around cameras and has always loved this medium. Being shy and a bit of an introvert, she has heavily relied on photographs to express her opinions and frustrations.
She has a tongue-in-cheek approach to life and she always tries to diffuse any heated situation with a smile or a joke. A good sense of humour is very important to her. She has been influenced by 1940s and 1950s movies and by the Hollywood golden era of cinema, with its beautiful costumes and divas. Fashion is very important to her and she builds her props and stage and she sources all the vintage clothing herself. Sometimes she makes her own clothes using some of her extensive vintage fabric collection.
Her work reflects how she was brought up. Her pictures are heavily staged and very colourful with a lot of props and a vintage feel.
Her photographs tackle issues that are personal to her and very close to her heart, like bullying, homophobia, greed and politics and money, the environment, poverty and anything that limits other people’s freedom. Photography is a very powerful and important weapon and as an artist, she believes she has the duty to use it to spread awareness of social issues.
The exhibition opens on 26 February 2024. The Open View is on 29 February @7pm and everybody is welcome to come along.