Research • Sam Taylor-Wood

Sam Taylor-Wood is a filmmaker, photographer and visual artist, and I am going to analyse her self portrait works that she has produced.

I love Sam Taylor-Wood's work because of the eerieness but safeness of the shots. This photograph is taken from a collection called "Gracefully Suspended", where she explores the ideas of gravity and weightlessness and "places herself in situations where her interior and external sense of self is in conflict" (My Modern Metropolis, 2009)

This is the collection of self portraits titled "Bram Stoker's Chair Series". I have always wondered about these photographs, why has the chair not got a shadow? Is there some importance as to why she is only highlighted in the shadows? I think this series focusses on her darker side, which is why she is only highlighted in the shadows. The shadows are mimicking her at the moment, but later on in the series, or if she were to continue it, the shadows could walk away, or not copy her anymore, becoming a lone entity and leading its own life? If this were a circular narrative, the shadow could move away, and then the main character (in this series, the main character being Sam Taylor-Wood herself), could retrieve her shadow and put it back where it belongs, ending back at the first photograph. This would be my idea if I had the keyword "light", but alas, I do not.