Joanna Hulin graduated with a First Class Honours in BA(Hons) Fine Art, from Falmouth University in 2015. She has since exhibited in London, Cornwall, Wales, Somerset and Yorkshire. Accolades include winning 2nd prize in Wells Art Contemporary 2016 and “Invest in the Art Stars of Tomorrow”, The Times Online in 2015.

Recently Hulin produced a series of works taken from images of unidentified bodies found in the UK Missing Persons database. ‘Doe III’ is a portrait based on what the artist thinks is the results of a house search. ‘It’s quite unusual for photographs of “alive decedents” to turn up as it tends to quickly provide a positive identification. Normally, you only see images of the face taken after death, along with a list of personal possessions such as watches or shoes, in order to help speed up the identification process.

I recently read about a study that was conducted a few years ago which suggests that in the UK, an average person on a typical day can potentially be captured up to 70 times on a CCTV camera – so it is fascinating that these men have still not been identified, and yet there are images available of them taken when they were alive and interacting with other people. Being listed on the database is like a form of virtual purgatory or limbo – they are people and yet at the same time “non-people” as they literally have no identity or ‘self’. So it’s an interesting process creating portraits of them when traditionally portraiture is something that is reserved to the most important members of our society.’

Joanna Hulin lives and works in Reading, Berkshire.