Photography is my Anti-drug.: 2010

Raquel Vargas

Kelly and Davenport

WASH

26 February 2010

Sam Taylor-Wood

Sam Taylor-Wood was born in London, England on March, 4 1967. Taylor-Wood came from a separated family. Her mother and father divorced within her teenage years and she then moved in with her mother and step-father in Surrey. After their move inot Surrey, her mother left the family while Taylor-Wood was sixteen. Taylor-Wood had a hard time in school and it took her a long time to get into an art school. She graduated form Goldsmiths College in 1990 with a Fine Arts degree and is a member of the young British Artist group. Taylor-Wood married jay Jopling, her art dealer, in 1995. She had two daughters with him. After eleven years of marriage they split and Taylor-Wood is now engaged to actor, Aaron Johnson, and received their first child in January of 2010. In 1997, Taylor-Wood received the news that she had colon cancer. It was treated and then in 1999 she was diagnosed with breast cancer. This cancer was also successfully treated.

In 194, Taylor-Wood had her breakthrough with her short video, "Killing Time", where there are four people miming an opera score. After that her focus was on creating more multi-screen videos. In 1996, she came out with two short videos, "Travesty of a Mockery" and "Pent-Up". Taylor-Wood's work examines the split between being and appearance, often placing her human subjects - either singly or in groups - in situations where the live between interior and external sense of self is in conflict"(http://www.whitecube.com/artists/taylorwood/photographstwo). In some of her work, Taylor-Wood takes out some specific aspects to the piece. For example: in her 2006 film, "Prelude in Air", Tylor-Wood had a man playing a cello to a piece of music by Bach. One can hear the music but the cello has been erased from the picture. She does not just try this trick with her videos but also with her photography. In her series of self-portraits, "Self Portait Suspended I-VIII", one can see the artist hanging in air without any support. Taylor-Wood experiments with different things like weights and gravity, sounds, and growth and decay.

Taylor-Wood tries to share, through her pieces, society's social atmosphere and psychological senses. With some of her work, she thinks outside of the box and looks into sacred and profane. She connects religious imagery from the Renaissance era and Baroque's landscape paintings. Taylor-Wood also explores the ways of the human body. In her photography series, "Self Portrait Suspended" (2004), she "desplay[s] the vulnerability and fagility of the human body and self" (http://www.lacan.com/taylor.html).

A similar artist like Taylor-Wood is Juergen Teller. Teller crosses boundaries with fashion and photogrphy art. His style connects with Taylor-Wood; it is mostly dark and ambiguous. He likes to capture the imperfections of the human body. Taylor-Wood likes to capture the "vulnerability" of the human body. when one examines Teller's pieces, one might think that he is making an anti-fashion statement to the style of the eighties. With both Taylor-Wood and teller, these artists make whole new universes for the audience looking at their work. They hava a specific focus point that catches the audience's attention immediately.

Taylor-Wood's work caught my attention instantly. The artwork that I like the most is the portraits of the human bodies. Most of the pieces have the body in an awkward and interesting position. It makes me wonder why she put the body that way. Also those Taylor-Wood's pieces where she takes out an object also grabs my interest. It confuses me to why she took that part out and how she took it out in the end. Its also makes me think a lot harder to why she made certain changes to her pieces. Her work forms a lot of questions in my head. Her style is very dark and mysterious and it makes me look closer and longer at the pieces.

Work Cited:

"Sam Taylor-Wood -."Wikipedia, the free encyclopidia, Web, 26 Feb. 2010.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Taylor-Wood.

"Sam Taylor-Wood Biography and Artwork - MetroArtWork." MetroArtWork - MetroArtWork. Web, 26
Feb.2010. http://www.metroartwork.com/sam-taylorwood-bigoraphy-artworkm-192.html
sort=4a&page=1.

"Sam Taylor-Wood." White Cube. Web, 26 Feb. 2010.
http://www.whitecube.com/artists/taylorwood/photographstwo/.

Ukrainian Pavilian, Web, 26 Feb. 2010. http://ukrainianpavilion2007.org/en/artists/taylorwood.

Ukrainian Pavilion, Web, 26 Feb. 2010. ukrainianpavilion2007.org/en/artists/teller>.

"Sam Taylor-Wood." Splash28. Web, 26 Feb. 2010. http://www.lacan.com/taylor.html.

"Sam Taylor-Wood on artnet." Artnet - The Art World Online, Web, 26 Feb. 2010.
http://www.artnet.com/Artists/ArtistHomePage.aspx?artist_id=16443&page_tab=Artworks.