Sam Taylor Wood
Sam Taylor Wood is an English photographer and film maker and is known for her unconventional self portraiture and levitation work. She started in small short films called Travesty of a Mockery and Pent-Up from 1996, which then lead to bigger films like Nowhere Boy 2010, she worked with a number of different actors and visual artists and has won a number of awards with her films. She has been nominated for annual Turner Prize in 1998 and as one of the most inflectional artists of the 21st century which you can see very clearly in her images the way her film maker past gives her an edge to her images. They are very dramatic, have great lighting that give a immense atmosphere and the composition makes the most of the image and gives your eye the perfect amount to look at.
“Its about there being a physical limit but in an emotional space, its about being caught in an inbetween space, no mans land, a momentary space, neither up nor down, here nor there”- Sam Taylor Wood 2002
Self Portrait Suspended 2004, C-type print
Her series of work called Suspended is where the image shown is from, challenges the way reality is held up by fickle strings of society and how we have to find a way of release , these’s are self portraits so the idea of her needing a break from reality. She’s breaking the link between dream and reality, a place where your suspended from all worries and stress. My work will be addressing the same realisation as Sam Taylor Wood, about being caught up in yourself and the way we deal with it. She has a great eye for composition and light, these are all factors which I will take into consideration as her style is very unique and edgy. She experiments with dark humour, performance and characters. In her images she has lack of place and time in her allowing the image to just simple be. She uses this a tool for the audience to relate to may people in a hyper-reality world and experimenting with time and space.
REFRENCES
Books:
Sam Taylor Wood- Still Lives, publisher Steidl BALTIC 2006
Sam Taylor Wood, publisher Steidl for the Haywood Gallery London, Essays’ by Micheal Bracewell and Jeremy Millar
Websites
http://samtaylorjohnson.com/photography
http://whitecube.com/artists/sam_taylor-johnson/
Journals:
Sam Taylor–Wood
Author: Tranberg, Dan
Is Part Of: ArtUS, Summer, 2008, Issue 23, p.31(1)
Title: Artistic conceptions; Sam Taylor–Wood.(Features)
Author: David Mattin
Is Part Of: The Times (London, England), May 16, 2006, p.2
Representation 