Sam Taylor-Wood

Sam Taylor-Wood is an English filmmaker, photographer and conceptual artist from Croydon, England. Through highly charged scenarios, her photographs and films examine our social and psychological differences. She explores human relationships and emotions, focusing on moments of fragmentation or tension. In her 2002 Crying Men series, she asked a hand full of celebrities to perform and cry while she photographed them. Through this process, we see a high-profiled subject showing heroic crying where stoic restraint has broken down. The viewer is presented with seemingly private, intimate moments of sorrowful emotion. However, with the knowledge that they are actors, it is left unconfirmed whether what the viewer is experiencing is an insight into their soul or the beautiful execution and capture of another acting role.

One of my favorite video series by Taylor-Wood is her 2001 Still Life series in which she references the passage of time by filming rotting fruit. It's particularly interesting that she chose to use a still life to represent this acceptance of mortality since still life's are very classical with symbolism. Still Life is part of the classical genre that contains symbols of change or death as a reminder of their inevitability. Its focus was upon confronting the vanity of worldly things through often subtle signs of elapsing time and decay, and her work steps right into that direction. We see the beauty of the fruit full of color and attractive to look at, but then it decomposes itself and we are left with nothing but a grey mass.

Photographing crying celebrities and filming decaying fruit really examines the split between being and appearance. Taylor-Wood does a great job placing her subjects in situations where the line between interior and external sense of self is conflict. Her art deeply evokes the complexity of human emotions in everyday life. Overall, the images that she creates suggest the neurosis and psychosis of contemporary relationships. Her point is that there is a private, largely unseen side to every human emotion and relationship, and this is what represents us.