Trish Morrissey: Autofictions - leading Irish photographer's work takes centre stage for exhibition in Bradford

Born and raised in Dublin, Morrissey lives and works in the UK, based in Somerset. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is held in public and private collections around the world. Autofictions includes selections from two seminal photographic series – Seven Years (2001-2004) and Front (2005-2007), both of which were commissioned by, and first shown at, Impressions and developed over long periods of time. For Front Morrissey approached families on beaches and asked if she could swap places with one of the female members in the group – usually the mother figure – who would then take the photograph under her instruction. It creates an intriguing dissonance in the resulting images. The title of the series refers to the literal beachfront but also to the ‘front’ Morrissey needed to approach people with her request. You have to admire her for it. “In the beginning before I worked out who might be amenable, a few people refused,” she says. “But once I figured out how to do it – I asked them if they would take part in an art project – most people agreed. It was very collaborative and it was very generous of them. Collaboration has been a big part of my career.”

In Seven Years, Morrissey and her older sister – the seven refers to the age gap between them – re-enacted real and imagined scenes from family photographs. The results are endearing and amusing while also obliquely referencing the kind of psychological tension underlying those posed presentations of family life. “There is never a big plan when I embark on these projects – things often evolve from a little idea,” explains Morrissey. “I had a thought to get all our siblings – there are five of us – to make a family album, but the only one who could take direction and hold a pose was my sister Anne. So, we did it over three years. We worked with a stylist Mark Harriet – he did all the costumes and wigs – who works with me on everything I have done since then. It was hard work – my sister was very long-suffering and didn’t really enjoy it but I think she is now pleased to have that period immortalised. The project was very much about how albums were created, with photographs put into a book to be shown physically – it was almost a kind of propaganda tool. That doesn’t happen anymore with digital photography.”

These days, with our smartphones in our pockets, we are all photographers and often curating our own image and identity through selfies. Whether we acknowledge it or not, many of those images are performative, designed to create a certain impression for the benefit of the viewer. This is a notion that Morrissey understands very well. Her images are carefully thought through, composed with great attention to detail and frequently incorporate elements of her own life.

“There has to be a resonance with the character I’m portraying, I have to feel it,” she says. “That is how the title Autofictions came about – it’s from the idea that my work is a combination of biography and historical fiction. I often feel like I am working through emotions and sometimes it’s almost like I’m predicting what might happen. For example, with Front, the series that I did with the families on beaches, that, I realised later, was a kind of rehearsal for motherhood. When I started that series, I was hoping to be pregnant. The genesis of ideas, the impetus is often a kind of urge that is a psychological attempt to work through things in a way.”

This blurring of autobiography and fiction is a thread throughout her work. “My life seeps in to my work and my work seeps into my life, it is all combined,” she says. “People sometimes ask me when I work – well, it’s 24 hours, because you never stop thinking.” I wonder whether it sometimes feels exposing to put herself at the centre of her work. “It is a strange relationship I have with the material because there is the moment of the photograph, which does feel exposing, but then there is the production of the work which goes through another layer,” she says. “I find that I can’t look at the material for a few weeks, I have to kind of remove myself from the moment and then come back to it later.”

Her images – and her films – playfully occupy the space between reality and fantasy, autobiography and fiction. As a viewer it can feel discomfiting at times, even with the wry humour which is almost always present in her work. “Sometimes people are not sure whether they are allowed to laugh but you totally are,” she says. “But there is some darkness in my work too. Many of my ideas just come from living the life I am living and often it is a desire to make sense of what’s happening at the time, in a way. A lot of my recent work has probably been influenced by the pandemic.”

That is evident in a new short film, which she made during lockdown, Self Portrait with Two Snails – a close-up shot on her own face while two snails crawl across it. If you are not a fan of molluscs it’s not an easy watch. Morrissey says she cast the snails, selecting them from her own garden. “I had been gardening during lockdown, trying to grow food and snails became the enemy, but then I started studying them. The film symbolises the notion of slowing down and actually being in the moment – the pandemic and lockdown forced you to do that. So, it was about giving in to that – lying there with the snails on my face, just submitting to the process.” She says that she now feels much more generous towards snails.

The experience of looking back over her career for the exhibition has been positive and also enlightening, allowing her to make connections that she hadn’t noticed before. “Although each project is unique, I can see there is definitely a thread running through. And it’s been lovely working with Impressions again – they have been so supportive over the years. I feel very privileged to have had that relationship – it is unusual and I am extremely grateful for their generosity.”

Trish Morrissey: Autofictions – Twenty Years of Photography and Film, runs at Impressions Gallery, Bradford, until October 14. Free entry. impressions-gallery.com