I first met Eileen Perrier when I was a fresh-faced undergraduate student. I was new to the art world but she immediately stood out, not just because she was the only tutor of colour on my course, but for her critical feedback and quiet encouragement. Her straight talking, fiercely warm personality draws you into her orbit and it has had a lasting impact on me.
I recall a class trip she arranged to Autograph’s gallery in east London. The visit was formative and affirmed a desire I had to one day work for the organisation. I would never have imagined then that I would go on to join its team and curate Perrier’s first retrospective, A Thousand Small Stories.
Having worked closely with Perrier on the exhibition for the past 18 months, I found myself walking through the gallery on the eve of its opening, returning the gaze of each of her portraits. Against the muted clay backdrop of the gallery walls, each evocative photograph holds a quiet power, steeped in rich narratives. Brought together, they are a chorus of kinds, reaffirming the lyricism of Perrier’s work — and why she deserves to be celebrated.
For the past 30 years, Perrier has worked at the intersection of social documentary and fine art, employing the photographic portrait as a tool for visibility and dialogue, capturing the breadth, depth and vibrancy of the Black British experience.
From picture to picture, she raises vital questions about how we connect with each other, our shared experiences and differences. Through kinship or community, her astute eye brings each of the people she photographs vividly and individually before us.
Born and raised in north-west London, Perrier’s dual Ghanaian and Dominican heritage has had a palpable influence on her practice. Through family albums and stories shared by her mother, Grace, who arrived in Britain from Ghana in the 1960s, Perrier came to understand her ancestral ties. Yet the chasm between her mother’s vivid recollections of home and the reductive imagery of Africa that Perrier saw in the photojournalism of the 1990s created a tension.
As a student in the mid-1990s, a travel grant enabled her to visit Ghana for the first time with her mother. The trip was transformative, personally and creatively, leading to the creation of her series Ghana (1995—96). Vividly photographed in colour, the journey and resulting portraits saw Perrier confront the limitations of the black-and-white photojournalistic images she had previously seen. She embraced the textures and pluralities of her British upbringing and diasporic identity.
Now in her early fifties, Perrier continues to subtly interrogate how identity is shaped by place, history and family. Drawing richly on storytelling as a form of reclamation and resistance is what makes her photographs so distinct and timeless. Her visual language is shaped by a deep engagement with both 19th-century painting and African studio photography. She cites photographers such as the Nigerian JD ’Okhai Ojeikere and Malian Seydou Keïta as key influences.
What unfolds is a playful yet deliberate experimentation with composition and traditional portraiture techniques. Despite the complexities and ethical tensions often associated with photographing others, Perrier’s approach centres personhood and community. By creating inclusive, collaborative environments where sitters are seen with care and intention, she succeeds in making the act of being photographed not just visible but meaningful.
The Red, Gold and Green series (1996—97), commissioned by Autograph while Perrier was still a student, is an example of this approach. Her mother, having separated from Perrier’s father in the 1960s, found support in a close-knit community, where distant relatives, school friends and their spouses formed an extended family. Perrier photographed this circle: three generations of British Ghanaians, alongside relatives of Jamaican, Irish, English and mixed-heritage backgrounds, in the front rooms of their London homes. Using bold, vivid fabric backdrops in the red, gold and green of the Ghanaian flag, she created makeshift studios. The resulting images reveal intimate traces of their lives: family photographs, cherished keepsakes and important ornaments are woven into each frame.
London continues to provide Perrier with inspiration and to set the scene for several series featured in the exhibition. With more than 100 photographs on display, the show also includes a remarkable trove of ephemera, among them a school portrait of Perrier, aged 10. This image became the catalyst for Grace (2000), a series that explored her diastema (a gap between the two front teeth), a trait she shares with her mother, and gently delved into themes of difference and inherited identity.
Also included in her retrospective is the influential Afro Hair and Beauty Show (1998—2003). Perrier spent several years photographing the effervescent atmosphere of this major annual event celebrating African and Caribbean hair culture. “Growing up, my hair was often styled in cornrows or wrapped in black cotton thread — a traditional west African hairstyle,” she reflects. “Over the years I experimented with long braids, and then wigs in my late teens, before eventually shaving my head at university and later locking my hair.”
Marking Autograph’s long-standing relationship with Perrier, it felt fitting to commission her once again. Twenty-Two (2025) in some ways echoes aspects of Red, Gold and Green from decades earlier. The series reflects on the complexities of growing up and, for the first time, Perrier photographed her son, Lewis, alongside his friends. She reflects that “becoming a single parent when my son was six years old had a profound impact on my personal and professional life; it forced me to reassess the direction of my career and the decisions I needed to make to move forward. Now, he’s 22, I realise that these shifts were not just necessary for survival but essential for his growth and wellbeing. It taught me resilience, adaptability and the importance of creating a stable foundation for both of us.”
Although the show is celebratory, it is more than just a reflection on her career. Perrier’s practice as both educator and artist stands as a powerful reminder to those who forge creative careers alongside motherhood, commitments of care and the quiet labour of daily life. In her world, a commission has never simply been a job but an act of persistence and a gesture of care. Perrier remains a much-needed voice in the canon of photography, making visible the stories that too often go unseen.
“Eileen Perrier: A Thousand Small Stories” is at Autograph, London, until September 13. Curated by Bindi Vora. Free entry. autograph.org.uk
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