In 1990, Di ffrench worked in a studio that was once Canterbury College’s life-drawing room. Generations of artists had trained there, in an environment that reflected attitudes inherited from Europe. Female models were typically presented as beautiful and passive, while male models assumed heroic, active poses, often with warlike props like shields or spears. The artist’s subsequent Hunter Warrior series was made by projecting photographs onto coal dust, then re-photographing and colouring them. Di placed male figures alongside objects that continued this association between maleness and aggression, such as the helmet seen here, highlighting the way that values and beliefs can frame and alter how we see, and how we behave.

(Perilous: Unheard Stories from the Collection, 6 August 2022- 21 July 2024)