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The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders both past and present.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander viewers are warned that this website contains images of deceased persons.

3/4 length self portrait in bathroom mirror, wearing t-shirt, 1979

Carol Jerrems

gelatin silver photograph on paper (image: 23.8cm x 16.0cm. sheet: 25.1cm x 20.1cm. frame: 58.5cm x 43.2cm)
3/4 length self portrait in bathroom mirror, wearing t-shirt, 1979

In this final series, we encounter Jerrems’ body in a painfully vulnerable state. Taken just two years after Mirror with a memory: Motel room, this photograph loosely echoes the earlier work’s composition. A post-coital moment becomes post-op, and the soft light of the Gold Coast motel room is replaced with the uncongenial light of a hospital bathroom. Jerrems stands straight on to the mirror, her body bruised and suffering. While she navigates a love affair in the earlier photograph, Jerrems is now completely alone; something that she grappled with quite explicitly in diary entries: ‘God, please help me? I am completely alone … In illness, one is made to face death, but we are all dying since birth.’

National Library of Australia
© The Estate of Carol Jerrems

Related information

Bobbi Sykes, Aboriginal Medical Service, 1973 Carol Jerrems
Bobbi Sykes, Aboriginal Medical Service, 1973 Carol Jerrems
Bobbi Sykes, Aboriginal Medical Service, 1973 Carol Jerrems
Bobbi Sykes, Aboriginal Medical Service, 1973 Carol Jerrems

Carol Jerrems: Portraits

Previous exhibition, 2024

Carol Jerrems: Portraits is a major exhibition of one of Australia’s most influential photographers. Jerrems’ intimate portraits of friends, lovers and artistic peers transcend the purely personal and have come to shape Australian visual culture.
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The National Portrait Gallery building front entrance
The National Portrait Gallery building front entrance
The National Portrait Gallery building front entrance

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The National Portrait Gallery acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of Country throughout Australia and recognises the continuing connection to lands, waters and communities. We pay our respect to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures and to Elders past and present. We respectfully advise that this site includes works by, images of, names of, voices of and references to deceased people.

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