Jessica McDermott

Show and Tell

Show and Tell depicts the relationship between individuals and their cherished possessions. This series is inspired by the Renaissance painter Hans Holbein The Younger and the use of symbols within his portraiture. The objects and motifs in his paintings acted as a thinly veiled code for his contemporaries, who could draw upon their knowledge of biblical and mythological stories to decipher the layered messages in the work. Show and Tell is a 21st century reimagining of his Renaissance paintings, using space and colour to highlight the symbolic relationship between the sitter and their possession. Today’s society tends to draw from broader experiences and references, and stories routed in religion and classical literature are no longer so far reaching. This series develops a new and illimitable code in response to our increasingly individualistic and secular society, with the symbols stemming from the sitter’s personal and unconnected stories. When making these images, audio was also recorded of the sitters telling the stories of their objects in their own words.