Images should tell a story, they are a lingering snippet of time, that leaves the viewer questioning, what has just happened? What is about to happen? Why are these people there? What are they doing? Is the composition set up? Why has it been set up that way?
Hannah Starkey uses actors in carefully chosen settings to create lingering pictures in time that raise all of these questions, in choosing women that are ‘ordinary’ and clothed, she is challenging the ‘raunchy aspect’ of how women are represented in everyday imagery. Her work, creates a counter aesthetic for representing women. As one of the most influential and significant photographers of her generation, she creates images that emerge from the split second of the everyday and are resolved into what appears to be an extended moment in time.
Art catalogue, published on the occasion of the exhibition Hannah Starkey 29 Pictures at the Mead Gallery. Design by Stefi Orazi studio
