Colin Gray: In Sickness and in Health

So this week I headed out and had a very cultural lunch break. I paid a visit to Ferens Art Gallery to see Colin Gray’s photography exhibition: In Sickness and in Health.

The Hull born artist began taking photographs in the early 1980’s documenting his parents as the face old age and utlimately leading to his Mother’s death in 2004. The photographs concentrate on his mother’s disability following a stroke and show his fathers struggle as her carer. 

Gray quotes: “this work is, in a sense, a preparation, helping me to face the deterioration, and the loss I have endured”. 

The exhibition was a mix of photos from his parent’s in fancy dress costumes having the time of their life to the very morbid photos of his mother’s decline. Walking clockwise around the circular room you are taken on the journey and progression of his mother’s illness up until her final moments. The photography is very clever with the use of placement and lighting, but it is the subject matter which provokes the conversation about this exhibition.