Artist Statement
Our work pays particular focus to 'The Twin', what it is to be an identical being - to in essence, share an identity with your double. We explore the worldwide fascination with twins: in terms of the pop culture fixation of the 'evil-twin', the depths of the twin in folklore (The Doppelganger) and the themes explored through psychology and psychoanalysis. We aim to take advantage of the visual power - the awkwardness, the lack of fit and belonging, the freakish feel - of the twin motif. Within the performance of our self-portraits we illustrate the relevance of such an evocative motif in the context of a culture still fixated on the individual. Process Statement
We alter our appearance through the use of make-up, costume, prosthetics and props to become the new characters. Metamorphosis is exciting to us, just the idea of changing our appearance to address different aspects of our inner-selves feels very liberating. We enjoy the relevance in the ideas of adopting new identities and personas, taking on new character traits for the moment that the shutter is pressed.

Shooting with a digital SLR, with slight elements of post production, we display our photographs as large scale images to have maximum impact when seen in exhibition.

 

 

As identical twins, we have always been interested in exploring issues concerning identity and 'twinship' within our artwork. While working individually, we both turned separately to photography and digital media as our main tools for creating artwork. We initiated our collaboration part way through our BA (hons) Fine Art studies in 2002, at the Birmingham Institute of Art & Design, Birmingham City University. During this time, our efforts started to centre solely upon our own identities and we developed an interest in altering our appearance – adopting new identities as a way of compensating for sharing a singular identity.

We soon uncovered a wealth of subject matter to apply to our works and examined themes of cloning and the ‘nature versus nurture’ debate. We applied these themes to our degree show work. Featuring a series of six large format photographic images and a 3-dimensional video projection, our degree show was short-listing for the Golly Slater fine art award. We graduated in 2003, both earning a first class degree with honours.

Continuing to work collaboratively, we have created several bodies of work since graduation. The first was a series of ten photographic self-portraits titled: ‘Through the Looking Glass’. This work examined ideas of voyeurism and reflection, drawing upon personal experiences that date back to our childhood. Presented in the style of Pre-Raphaelite-esque portraits, these works invite the intrusive stare of the viewer.

More recently, we have dedicated our creative output to a body of work entitled: ‘The Cataclysmic Accounts from the Binary Institute’, a larger and somewhat more ambitious project than that we have attempted before. The series comprises of large scale self-portraits, combining themes routed in psychology and psychoanalysis with folklore and fairytale. One of the pieces from ‘The Cataclysmic Accounts from the Binary Institute’ earned us the Rhubarb Bursary in 2009, enabling us to exhibit the work at Wolverhampton Art Gallery and take part in the Rhubarb Portfolio Promenade. In January - March 2010, seven of the self portraits were exhibited at the Australian Centre for Photography, Sydney.

We have also been fortunate enough participate in FotoFest Biennial, Houston, Texas, in March 2010, where we received excellent feedback from more than 20 curators from all over the world. Following our experience at Fotofest we have exhibited work from ‘The Cataclysmic Accounts from the Binary Institute’ in two exhibitions in Birmingham, UK. ‘The Uses of Enchantment’ was a joint show between Vee Speers and ourselves hosted at Rhubarb East from 27 March – 12 June 2010. This was followed by ‘Separaeted by Daily Life’, a continuation from ‘The Uses of Enchantment’ incorporating works by Adam Magyar and Ricardo E. Zulueta. This show took place at The Mailbox and ran from 24 July – 14 August 2010.

Spring 2012 saw us complete a new series of work which we have decided to call 'Project MZ2502'. This work explores further themes of twin experimentation (that we started to investigate in 2003, during our degree studies).

 

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