Identity, it’s a crisis can’t you see?

Artist Jill Bryson, in conjunction with Creative Scotland, presents a performative exploration of gender identity. Filmed at the Burgh Hall with pupils from Dunoon Grammar School, the performance looks at the importance of gender in identity.

The filmed performance will be supplemented with music and related mixed media images including paintings, photography and collage. The aim is to stimulate conversation about what female identity means to each of us and involve the audience in a stimulating multimedia experience.

Jill Bryson is an artist who works in a range of media including film, photography, paint, collage and music. She was also part of the indie/pop duo Strawberry Switchblade whom she formed whilst studying at Glasgow School of Art and who signed to Warner’s music. The band had a strong visual aspect, influenced by her art, which is still copied today.

She became interested in playing with visual identity before enrolling at Art School, through her involvement in the emerging punk music scene which had strong female role models who challenged society’s ideas of how a woman should look and behave. Women like Siouxsie Sioux, Poly Styrene and the Slits. It had a profound effect on Jill and allowed her to take charge of her visual identity and influence the work she produced. That work became mainly performance based, exploring female Identity. Her paintings and collages have a strong pop art influence and she is fascinated by pop culture and how it reflects us as a society.