Art

A A A Comments By Vince Aletti Tuesday, Jan 18 2005

photo: Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery

May 1st, 1976

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Trish Morrissey
Yossi Milo Gallery
552 West 24th Street
Through February 26

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Dublin-born, London-based Trish Morrissey, 37, is a plain-looking teenager in an unflattering pixie haircut, a rather pretty girl in a baby doll dress and bare feet, a cocky young man in a spread-collar knit, an anxious new mother, a happy young wife. Like Cindy Sherman, she inhabits these characters mostly by putting on their clothes; but in Morrissey's case, some of these outfits were once her own. And not only does she enlist her older sister as an often cross-dressing partner in this serial role-playing, she stages most of her meticulously styled color snapshots in and around her family's Dublin home. The results aren't exactly a nostalgic remembrance of things past. Though the moments she re-creates are largely uneventful—a birthday, a picnic, a visit to the beach, a pose by the garden wall—Morrissey gets under the skin of family history and teases out confusion, deception, delusion, and unconditional love. Because each photo is titled with a very specific date (August 8th, 1982; September 4th, 1972), the work stakes a stubborn claim on the truth while inviting us to share both the fantasy and the anxiety.

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