JOY GREGORY

What were the inspirations for this series of work?

I started off by thinking about how black people have been presented in the past.  I've been looking at historical representation for a long time. I was interested in the idea of portraiture being something to show power, possession and status.

I spent quite a long time looking at portraits in the National Portrait Gallery from the 17th, 18th and 19th century, mainly of men, some of women.  I found myself drawn to the figure of Elizabeth I and how she has been presented pictorially in paintings.  I decided that I wanted to look at this way of representing these women because most of the people in these paintings were men.

Some of them were landowners, from the colonial periods -the 17th century through to the 19th century. I just thought I want to reclaim those poses and that confidence in a photograph. I spent a long time looking at the viewpoint of the audience and trying to replicate that in my photographs.

The work is a series of portraits but do you see each portrait as an individual piece or all together as one complete piece?

I would think they could be either but would consider a series as being a complete piece anyway. I see it as it is a commission that's about bringing some very disparate things together. I think to try and do that pictorially, for example the locations in which we photographed people were all incredibly different.

All the women are immensely diverse. But it was what that thinking of how can I present it so it holds together as a single work. I thought to do the portraits, so one shot is close up and then other either full length or sitting as a way of carrying the theme through.

Now I've got most of the photographs back I’m actually looking at how we can work with that, with the colour. Again, going back along to the portrait of Elizabeth II and that very particular way of the colour actually being the thing that really zings out.

Was there a specific portrait that you saw that spoke to you within the National Gallery’s collection?

 There were a number of them, but there were two specifically in terms of representation of women which became my touchstones. The sitters were both presented from a position of power, and they were contemporary women of the 21stC.

The first was a photographic portrait of the Malala Yousafzai taken by Shirin Neshat. I've known Shirin's work previously but never thought about her as a portrait photographer. I know of her earlier work where she wrote in text over portraits of herself. The way she presented Malala in this piece was striking -it is a close up portrait, so it's all about her face which is framed in her veil. She looks very powerful, very strong and she's looking directly at the camera. She’s also slightly elevated which gives her a position of power, she has full possession of herself and her position. I wanted to try and replicate that within my photographs.

The other image kept going back to was a painting of Elizabeth II by Pietro Annigoni.  I think it's one of the most beautiful paintings of her I've ever seen. The main colours within it are blue and red but she looks very other worldly. Her body is actually positioned towards the viewer however she's looking slightly to one side. Again, she's in total possession of her power without abusing it, she is not pretending to be something other than herself, she's very comfortable in that space. I think it elevates her, it's very otherworldly and it made me make the decision to actually photograph in colour rather in black and white.