Jane and Louise Wilson
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Jane and Louise Wilson (born 1967) are British artists, often known as "The Wilson Sisters", as they are twin sisters who have exhibited and worked together throughout their career. Their work includes large multiscreen video installations and photo-pieces. They are seen as part of the Young British Artists (YBA) generation.
At school they were the only pupils studying A-level art, and this was the only subject they studied together. They used friends as models, often posing them in their underwear. Louise studied for a BA at Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee and Jane at Newcastle Polytechnic (1989). For their degree show they submitted identical work (photographs where they appeared to be murdering each other, one by drowning, one with a noose). They then studied together on the MA course at Goldsmiths College, London (1990-2). They were shortlisted for the 1993 Barclays Young Artist prize; they have exhibited at the Serpentine Gallery and were included in the 1995 British Art Show.
When they left art school, they lived in King's Cross and made films of small living spaces, such as bed and breakfast rooms. Another early film showed them taking LSD for the first time. The Wilson sisters' works often feature alien institutional spaces with dominant architecture. Past subjects have been oil rigs, the archives of the Stasi in East Berlin (the building had previously been used by the Nazis and Stalin's Russia), The Houses of Parliament, and the Apollo Pavilion in Peterlee designed by Victor Pasmore. The pair were nominated for the Turner Prize in 1999.
Gamma is a multiscreen video installation and was filmed at the former USAF base at Greenham Common, which was in use to house cruise missiles during the Cold War. It was decommissioned in 1992. The Wilsons' video moves through the deserted institution, where nothing is now happening, evoking disturbing memories and possibilities. There is a sense of unease and threat, implied but never realised. They are the only characters in the film, appearing in military-style skirts and polished black shoes.
A Free and Anonymous Monument (2003) developed their work with greater complexity, involving not only multiple projections but also a variety of differently positioned surfaces as screens. It includes films of a microchip factory, playing children, a lake, a rusting oil rig and the Apollo Pavilion in Peterlee New Town, near Gateshead.
They have a close relationship and share a flat.
