Fran Cresswell is a painter and printmaker preoccupied with portraiture. Her work is closely observed, seeking to hold both likeness and a deeper sense of presence. Informed by a background in printmaking, her practice is grounded in drawing: negotiating where to hold control and where to let go. Her portraits are rooted in her relationships with those she paints.

The paintings are drawn from a self-directed photo shoot in which Fran was director, model and photographer; a combination of roles that continues once she is at the easel, where she becomes painter and sitter at once. This collapsing of positions is central to the work: to be simultaneously the one who sees and the one who seen at is to hold the gaze from both sides, and to choose, deliberately, how that looking takes place. Alongside the paintings, a series of small mezzotint prints called ‘Fragments’ depict tiny snippets of self portraits.

Together, the works interrogate the dynamics of the gaze: what it means to see and to be seen, and what changes when the subject also directs the seeing. Informed by her experience of chronic illness, Cresswell is interested in the quiet transformative power of being truly seen; and here, of seeing oneself fully, on one's own terms.