Sam Taylor-Wood
She creates a "hyper-reality" based world, pushing the boundaries of space and time, through both mediums of photography and video. Most of her works are portraits or self-portraits, creating a scene of narrative, yet are still seemingly incomplete. This creates an atmosphere of tension and suspense, it's this lack of resolution to the narrative that is unlike many series of stills or videos we see.
In terms of presentation, position and attitude of the viewer are of great importance to evoke the right reaction. For example in a series of videos she created, filming staged domestic arguments, she projected these films to fill entire walls within a room. But splitting the frame between the people on camera, she'd have one actor per wall, to signify the separation between the arguing pair. A simple yet effective idea.
Fabricating her own image of reality, she contrasts banal situations against a subliminal world of conflict.
Self Portraits, Suspended 2004
- Such a benign environment, an old factory turned into a studio, perhaps.
- This, contrasted with this bewildering image of a woman floating in mid-air. A scene of 'magical/mystical' nature
- Simplistic environment is teamed with a neutral colour palette and plain clothes the woman is wearing, to further emphasise the contrast of the banal against the mystical.
- She even takes the subject and adds a twist, humour.
