Brotherly self-love

Gillian Wearing's most intriguing work has often explored the disjuncture between the self and others' perception, and in some cases a literal mask represents the metaphorical one that we present to the world.

In one work, she walked the streets of South London with her face and head covered in bandages, recording the reactions of passers-by with a hidden camera; and in a recent photographic portrait, she wore a white mask moulded to her own features, but whose smooth surface gave nothing away.

Here, Wearing presents a series of six 'self-portraits' in the guise of members of her own family. With the help of prosthetics, make-up, clothes and props, she has recreated old family photos, including one of herself aged 17. In each picture, eyes look out of sockets whose rubbery contours reveal the artifice of the image.

But a couple of the pictures are almost seamlessly convincing and it's difficult to accept that, as stated in the press release, there has been no digital manipulation. Her meticulous reconstructions create a plausible backdrop for her transformed image.

However, Wearing's most powerful works have always been those that have revealed something of the duality between outer and inner lives, and the creation of situations in which our expectations, and those of unsuspecting onlookers, are affronted.

Though possessing all the weird theatricality of a Cindy Sherman, there is little here of what often gives Wearing's work that extra element of pathos.

Until Nov 23, Maureen Paley Interim Art, 21 Herald Street E2, Wed to Sun 11am to 6pm, free. Tel: 020 7729 4112. Tube: Bethnal Green