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The Skin We Live In

Portraits from the Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art collection

This curated selection of artwork from our collection explores contemporary portraiture through photography, painting, sculpture, film and printmaking.

The artworks in The Skin We Live In move away from a focus on the individual to reveal a collective experience. They provide visibility and voice to marginalised communities and uncover aspects of our human experience.

In many of the artworks, the face is absent, obscured, or masked. Instead the focus is on the body, incorporating performance, pose, clothing, personal effects or narrative. Rather than drawing a connecting through stare, this shift in focus draws a connection with the viewer through honesty, humility and humanity.

Ship Life - a photograph by Clarita Lulic. A person stands in the middle of a dock, wearing a gray and white shark costume. The dock is flanked by two large cruise ships, their rows of windows and lifeboats visible. Metal barriers and yellow safety barricades line the dock, creating pathways. The setting appears overcast, with light reflecting off the wet ground. The figure looks downward, creating a contemplative mood amid the industrial maritime surroundings.

Seven Short One Long – Ship Life

Clarita Lulic

2011

Inkjet print

‘Seven Short One Long explores my experience as a cruise ship photographer. Over seven months ‘acting’ in the role, I was able to go relatively unnoticed as I observed life onboard.

Initially, I began taking photographs almost as a means of survival, so I didn’t lose my identity to the job. But I also wanted to capture the strangeness of living on a large ship and document the areas I knew one day I would not have access to.

I photographed myself against an unfamiliar, transient environment and recorded all aspects of cruise ship life that I encountered. The title of the work describes the blasts of the ships horn in an emergency, which is the international signal to abandon ship.’ – Clarita Lulic

A dimly lit exhibition space featuring two large, angled projection screens. The screen on the left displays a close-up of a singer holding a microphone, bathed in moody lighting with hints of blue and orange. The screen on the right shows a crowd with hands reaching upward, some pointing or gesturing, capturing the energy of a live performance. Overhead, projectors and cables are visible against the dark ceiling. The immersive setup emphasizes a dynamic interplay between performer and audience.

Come Together

Graham Dolphin

2013/2022

Two-channel HD video 16:9, synchronised

Originally shown in 2013, the two-channel video work examines the phenomenon of pop fandom. It allows us to observe the exertions and emotions of the performer and the ecstatic response of their audience at the same time.

In summer 2013, Dolphin undertook an unusual artist residency at a large-scale North East music festival featuring celebrated bands who have accrued devoted fans. Dolphin was given unprecedented access to bands such as Primal Scream and Spiritualized, whose lead singers we encounter close-up. We are able to scrutinise their smallest gesture and every expression.

Dolphin also captures the audience, who, seen from a distance, are caught unaware in a state of adulation.

A smiling shopkeeper stands behind a wooden counter in a small grocery store. The counter has a weighing scale and a box labeled with a handwritten orange price tag reading

Mr Leon from Likkle Paradise series

Jhanee Wilkins

2023

Inkjet print

Jhanee Wilkins is an artist-photographer and filmmaker born and living in the West Midlands.

Likkle Paradise is a photographic celebration of the Windrush generation through Caribbean food and culture. Wilkins spent seven weeks at a local Caribbean food shop in Smethwick called Leon’s Food Store.

People from all over Birmingham came to Leon’s Food Store to buy and cook the food they were brought up with and carry on the traditions of their family. Wilkins met many people of different ages and from different places discussing everything from their experience of growing up in Jamaica, to being given a recipe for Saturday soup.

A black-and-white photograph depicting a person kneeling on a staircase covered with a patterned carpet runner. The individual is wearing a striped dress, leaning forward with their head bowed to touch the wall and hair obscuring their face. The wooden staircase has vertical wooden paneling along the walls. The composition evokes a sense of tension or introspection.

Untitled from the Self-defence series

Joanna Piotrowska

2014

Silver gelatin print

Joanna Piotrowska is a Polish artist based in London. She examines the human condition through performative acts and the construction of ‘social landscapes’ using photography, performance and film.

Using family archives, self-defence manuals and psychotherapeutic methods as reference points, Piotrowska explores the complex roles which play out in everyday performance.

‘I had been very concerned about vulnerability and the position of women. The figures in the self-defence manuals were obviously men. I wanted to start staging these positions with women in domestic spaces. We need to defend ourselves and use our bodies as a weapon.’ – Joanna Piotrowska

A barrel of a cannon points from left to right. The whole cannon has been covered in a shiny pink cloth. A female, also dressed completely in pink, bends at a right angle and sticks her head into the cannon. The cannon and the female are standing on very dry grass.

Love Cannon

Walker & Bromwich

2006

Lambda print

‘Love Cannon’ is part of Walker and Bromwich’s Friendly Frontier Peace Campaign. A campaign that celebrates love through actions and environments leading participants towards an alternate world of love and peace. The campaign took place in the context of the current global political climate and sought out love in a war-torn world through bizarre and romantic acts.

‘Love Cannon’ is a pink inflatable cannon, designed to shoot balloons into the skies in an action for peace. Each time the soft missiles are catapulted from the breach of this unlikely object, the collaborative duo hope to spread a bit more joy in a world at war.

A black and white photograph of two people embracing. The view point is from over the shoulder of one person with the back of their head visible and the face of the other leaning into their arm.

Janina Sabaliauskaitė, Heather and Rene at home, Gateshead, UK, 2022. Courtesy of the artist

Heather & Rene at home, Gateshead, UK

Janina Sabaliauskaitė

2022

Silver gelatin print

Janina Sabaliauskaitė is a Lithuanian-born and Newcastle-based artist-photographer, researcher and independent curator.

Her portraits capture dear and loved friends, described as a chosen family. They aim mobilise and make visible queer-feminist lives in the pursuit of solidarity, emancipation and positive social change.

The photos are the result of close personal relationships. Presenting moments of joy and intimacy, alongside intimate collaborative photographs of Sabaliauskaitė and her lovers.

They celebrate the LGBTQ+ community. And encourage dialogue about the fight for human rights both within Lithuania and the United Kingdom.

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