Poignant Pics no. 42 - On Clare Acford's "Darkness Awaits Me"...
Welcome to no. 42 in our series Poignant Pics where our editor, Diana Nicholette Jeon, writes about Clare Acford’s image, “Darkness Await’s Me”
Behind the Façade…
Darkness Awaits Me
I recently found several intriguing images from Clare Acford in a Facebook photography group, this one, Darkness Awaits Me, amongst them. I had not seen her work anywhere before. After arranging to feature this image, I set out to learn more about Clare and her work. I dug into deep corners of the web in my attempt to find additional information about Clare and her art practice, but I came up mostly empty-handed. As an artist, Clare Acford is as complete an enigma to me as the face she usually hides behind a mask in her work.
Asked about this image, Acford said, "We all live behind a mask and have thoughts, emotions and secrets that we hide. How these mind games play out and affect us can play a big part in who we are and how we negotiate life."
While some of her images lean towards the style and themes of Francesca Woodman, there is a quality to Acford's work that reminds me of Kumi Oguro's. Their subject matter and outward styles are markedly different, but both similarly use the trope of ambiguity. I'm specifically referring to how both utilize indeterminate space, the hidden faces, and a heightened sense of tension or danger.
Acford appears to be interested in an internal mind-scape and how that impacts one's life, demonstrated by the use of multiple selves, titling, desolate and decrepit surroundings, gesture, and of course, the faces hidden behind masks. While researching her work, I also studied her two photo books; the poetic prose underscored my feeling that her images speak to mental health issues or negative self-image and self-talk.
Like this one, Darkness Awaits Me, the images are brimming with ambiguous stories slightly beyond our reach–curious, a bit dark, and sometimes more than a little disturbing. The masks make the thoughts of the women unknowable to the viewer. The characters in Acford's self-portraits seem to search for meaning and matter – as if trying to outfox their demons.
I find her work intriguing, and I urge you to search Facebook for more of her black and white photographs. I believe Clare Acford is a talent to watch, and I sense we will continue to see many great images to come in the future. Bravo, Clare!
Artist Bio
Clare Acford was born in 1964 and lives and works in Leamington Spa, UK, as a videographer and editor. A member of the Royal Photographic Society she was awarded a Fellowship and received the Bill Wisden award in 2014. There are influences of Francesca Woodman throughout her recent works and she mainly concentrates on self-portraiture and environmental portraits. Currently she is working on a book, Darkness Awaits Me, which is a collection of self-portraits taken in recent years exploring the mind behind the mask.
Editor ‘s note: Some of her color work can be found in the two volumes I found at Blurb.
Author Bio
Diana Nicholette Jeon is an award-winning artist based in Honolulu, HI, who works primarily with lens-based media. Her work has been seen both internationally and nationally in solo and group exhibitions. Jeon holds an MFA from UMBC.