Hannah Starkey

Ashley ShannonHannah StarkeyBackgroundBorn in 1971, Belfast, Ireland Lives and works in London, UK 1992 - 1995 Napier University, Edinburgh B.A. (Hons.) Photography and Film1996 - 1997 Royal College of Art, London M.A. PhotographyCurrently lives and works in LondonHer WorkExplores the representation, identity, and interaction of the contemporary womanAutobiographical and about commonality of experienceQuote:my photography is influenced by my experiences, as a woman, as a mother, an artist, as aparticularly as a woman, reacting to how women are represented in our visual culture and how that affects me. I try to take all of these influences together to form a singular picture.Using actors within carefully considered settings, Hannah Starkeys photographs reconstruct scenes from everyday life with the concentrated stylisation of film. Starkeys images picture women engaged in regular routines such as loitering in the street, sitting in cafes, or passively shopping. Starkey captures these generic in between moments of daily life with a sense of relational detachment. Her still images operate as discomforting pauses; where the banality of existence is freeze-framed in crisis point, creating reflective instances of inner contemplation, isolation, and conflicting emotion.

Through the staging of her scenes, Starkeys images evoke suggestive narratives through their appropriation of cultural templates: issues of class, race, gender, and identity are implied through the physical appearance of her models or places.

Adopting the devices of filmography, Starkeys images are intensified with a pervasive voyeuristic intrusion, framing moments of intimacy for unapologetic consumption. Starkey often uses composition to heighten this sense of personal and emotional disconnection, with arrangements of lone figures separated from a group, or segregated with metaphoric physical divides such as tables or mirrors. Often titling her work as Untitled, followed by a generalised date of creation, her photographs parallel the interconnected vagueness of memory, recalling suggestions of events and emotions without fixed location or context. Her work presents a platform where fiction and reality are blurred, illustrating the gap between personal fragility and social construction, and merging the experiences of strangers with our own.3Guitar and Moon - working title2009

Hannah Starkey's photographs reconstruct scenes from everyday life with the concentrated stylisation of film. Starkey's images picture women engaged in regular routines such as loitering in the street, sitting in cafes, or passively shopping. Starkey captures these generic 'in between' moments of daily life with a sense of relational detatchment. Her still images operate as discomforting 'pauses'; where the banality of existence is freeze-framed in crisis point, creating reflective instances of inner contemplation, isolation and conflicting emotion.4Untitled, 2010

5Rosanne Blinds - working title 2009

Untitled - May 2003

Untitled, September 2006

Motherhood Series: Untitled, August 2012

It was a mix of people I have known previously with people I had newly met just before taking their picture. it was just a lovely, sudden, deep moment with a stranger, where you could actually talk about common experience. But explaining your thoughts to someone who might board a bus at any moment was quite intense; you have to get a lot of information across in a short amount of time. Suddenly you are having a conversation with someone who was a complete stranger moments before. This is what I love about photography.

9Self Portrait, February 2013

My work is autobiographical, but also about commonality of experience, in particular with women. I started in my twenties and the progression of my work so far has followed a chronological order of how I have grown up, as a reflection of my life at some point.The early works are very much an externalization of how women communicate in an urban environment. Then of course, certain things happen, you grow older, you have a family, different things start to inform your work, and then your practice changes. And there was a point, in terms of introspection, where a lot of my female characters turned away from the camera, partly because I wanted to turn away from that consumerist gaze that we were talking about, but also to try to make the viewer work harder to understand the psychological state of the subject of the photograph, as opposed to just immediately consuming the image of a female form.10Untitled, March 2013

Works Citedhttp://www.artnet.com/artists/hannah-starkey/biography-linkshttp://www.printed-editions.com/artwork/hannah-starkey-self-portrait-september-2008-11724?vm=rhttp://www.saatchigallery.com/artists/hannah_starkey.htm?vm=rhttp://www.thedailybeast.com/witw/galleries/2013/05/12/hannah-starkey-in-the-company-of-mothers-photos.html