Doris is Drunk Again

At first glance, this is a perfectly respectable seaside scene. Three teenage girls sit together on a rock, looking out across the water. Their dresses belong to another era; the sky is bright, and everything appears calm and wholesome.

Then you notice that one of the girls seems to be asleep.

There is no bottle in sight, no discarded glass and no evidence of wrongdoing. Even so, I imagined the two wakeful girls quietly discussing their companion. One leans towards the other and says, with the weary familiarity of someone who has seen it all before, "Doris is drunk again."

That invented sentence became the title and changed the picture completely.

The humour comes from placing an improper contemporary suggestion inside an image of old-fashioned respectability. Young ladies represented in scenes of this period were expected to appear composed, well-behaved, and certainly not publicly intoxicated on a rocky shoreline. Doris, however, has apparently ignored the rules - at least in the story I have invented for her.

I enjoy using found images as starting points for small fictional incidents. Magazine and newspaper fragments arrive with histories of their own, but cutting, arranging and retitling them allows another narrative to emerge. A look, gesture or accidental pose can become evidence in a story that never really happened.

Doris is Drunk Again invites the viewer to join that act of invention. Is Doris merely asleep after a long walk? Are her companions concerned, amused or quietly scandalised? Nothing is confirmed. The title supplies the accusation; the image maintains a dignified silence.

Artwork details

Title Doris is Drunk Again

Year 2026

Dimensions 105 x 148 mm

Medium Magazine and newspaper cuttings

Substrate 320 gsm white card

Presentation Unframed

A postcard-sized encounter between seaside innocence, unreliable storytelling and one young woman whose reputation may have been unfairly damaged.