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, which then lead to bigger films like Nowhere Boy 2010, she worked alongside 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.
Are approach to photography is always incredibly dramatic and have great lighting that give a immense atmosphere. I think that this is affected by her background in film making has she wants her images to say a thousand words and grab your attention, as in her previous projects she has 2 hours worth of context and content to give to the audience however in photography she only has a single frame. Her use of composition gives whatever subjects she showing in the image enough space for maximum impact on the viewer. She uses negative space to achieve this effect and works amazingly with her series called Suspended.
“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. She’s breaking the link between dream and reality, a place where your suspended from all worries and stress. The dream like elements are shown the large window symbolises freedom and opportunity, the brightly coloured walls and soft halo effect around her body and floor convey an angelic feel to the image, creating other-worldly
She experiments with dark humour, performance and characters. In her images she disregards and looses all sense of place and time allowing it to exist in a hyper-reality world where the audience can escape to. Like Vivan Maier’s work, Taylor-Wood creates her own world where her characters, which are all different aspects of her personality, flourish and co-exist. |
This is something that I really admire about her work and wish to translate over into my own work because it is important for the audience to understand that it is okay to escape from real life and this is my way of doing so. I wish to address her use of character within my work by showing myself looking at myself and also incorporate her ability of a hyper-reality to convey the release and self preservation.
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:
Title: Sam Taylor–Wood, Author: Tranberg, Dan, Is Part Of: ArtUS, Summer, 2008, Issue 23, p.31(1)
Title: Sam Taylor–Wood, Author: Birnbaum, Daniel, Is Part Of: Artforum International, Nov, 1996, Vol.35(3), p.88(2)
Title: Sam Taylor–Wood (exhibition), Author: Quinones, Paul, Is Part Of: Parachute: Contemporary Art Magazine, July-Sept, 1999, Issue 99, p.56-7