Eileen Perrier: A Thousand Small Stories
Eileen Perrier: A Thousand Small Stories
Curated by Bindi Vora
17th April, 2025 – 13th September, 2025
Autograph
Rivington Place
London
EC2A 3BA
Thirty years of looking with care — Eileen Perrier’s portraits of identity, kinship and place at Autograph
There’s a kind of looking that goes beyond the surface. Eileen Perrier has been doing just that for over thirty years — through a lens, yes, but more importantly, through presence. Her portraits aren’t just about capturing a moment — they’re about honouring it.
She rarely works in formal studios. Instead, she builds spaces from what’s around her — front rooms, community halls, hair salons, corners of the everyday. Places where people already feel rooted. She brings the tools, sets the tone, and lets the sitter arrive in their own time. It’s not spectacle. It’s connection.
Image courtesy of Autograph
© Eileen Perrier
Perrier was born in London to Ghanaian and Dominican parents, growing up in the layered space between identities. That in-between — both here and elsewhere, past and present — hums quietly through her work. Her portraits don’t ask for explanation. They allow space to simply be.
In Red, Gold and Green (1997), she turns to her own family — three generations of British Ghanaians, photographed at home, surrounded by memory and soft edges. The backdrop? Fabric draped across a wall. The feeling? Intimate, improvised, full of grace. Drawing on the tradition of African studio portraiture, the series becomes both archive and act of love.
In Afro Hair and Beauty Show, made in the late ’90s and early 2000s, hair takes centre stage — not just as fashion, but as identity, as defiance, as celebration. These portraits recognise the politics of beauty, but also the joy of it. The pride.
Image courtesy of Autograph
© Autograph
Her latest work, When am I gonna stop being wise beyond my years?, sits with teenage girls navigating the weight of growing up in public — filtered, scrutinised, expected. Perrier doesn’t offer answers. She offers space. The result is steady, clear-eyed, and deeply kind.
From Ghana to Brixton, salons to kitchens, family to strangers — her portraits hold a common thread: dignity. Across three decades, she’s returned to this act of looking with care. Of slowing down. Of seeing fully.
Image courtesy of Autograph
© Eileen Perrier
A Thousand Small Stories marks the first time this journey has been brought together. It is a celebration of people, of presence, of photography as quiet witness. In Perrier’s hands, every small story is given room to matter.
About Eileen Perrier
Born in London in 1974 to Ghanaian and Dominican parents, Eileen Perrier has spent over three decades using portrait photography to explore identity, belonging and the everyday. Her work brings the studio into lived spaces — front rooms, salons, street corners — creating portraits shaped by presence and trust. Since the 1990s, Perrier has worked as both an artist and educator.
Her photographs have been shown at Tate Britain, The Photographers’ Gallery, Whitechapel Gallery, Centre Pompidou, and beyond. She’s held residencies with Autograph x Light Work (USA) and Kunsthalle Schirn (Germany). Her work is held in collections including Tate, Arts Council England, Autograph, Light Work, and the Wedge Collection. Through each portrait, Perrier builds a quiet archive — one rooted in care, culture, and the act of seeing one another fully.
Eileen Perrier: A Thousand Small Stories opens on the 17th of April, 2025 until the 13th of September, 2025 at Autograph
©2025 Autograph
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