The Second Woman

Young Vic – 2023

Over 24 hours hours on Friday, in an epic live performance inspired by John Cassavetes’ film Opening Night, Ruth Wilson played the same break-up scene 100 times, but with 100 different men, that she had not met or rehearsed with.

The artwork shows the actress caught in a loop: stoically reliving the same break up scene over and over again. Her face split across the edges of the page, creating the illusion that she’s leaving the frame on one side, and coming in on the other side. The colours are based on the colour of the neons in the set: pink and blue.

We couldn’t shoot with Ruth so I had to source an existing image of Ruth for the concept, and chose that beautiful portrait by Pip.