A triptych is a piece of artwork that makes use of 3 separate but connected panels in order to tell a story across the 3 panels without using any moving imagery or effects. Triptychs were commonly used during the Middle Ages as a way to convey Biblical stories through images. Triptychs have more recently been widely replaced by the use of videos and recordings, which show the more intricate details of a progressing story without the need to “clump” significant events into just 3 images.

Although Triptychs were historically used to convey literal stories, myths and legends, modern triptychs often incorporate different meanings into the artwork displayed, and are often used as a way to display a continuous piece of art using 3 panels, separating the piece and allowing for attention to be drawn to each separate section, while also displaying the full piece in an eye-catching and interesting way.

Triptychs can be used to both tell a continuous story, or to display a continuous piece of literal artwork. For my project into Journeys & Pathways, I have decided to focus on displaying many of my final pieces as triptychs, as I believe in doing so I am able to literally display each photograph as a piece in a journey, with the first and final panels representing 2 ends of the same journey. In doing this, I will be able to use both literal and metaphorical terms when developing my photographs, as the images will represent more metaphorical journeys and pathways, whereas the display of the images in a triptych will allow for all 3 images to be brought together, and physically displayed as a journey that can be followed easily by the viewer by looking from one panel to the next.