Sam Taylor-Wood "Sam Taylor-Wood makes photographs and films that examine, through highly charged scenarios, our shared social and psyschological conditions. Her work examines the split between being and appearance, often placing her human subjects in situations where the line between interior and external sense of self is in conflict."

Her languid and silent film portrait of David Beckham, for example, which was shot in a single take, offers a serene alternative to this most intensively photographed celebrity. In Breach (Girl and Eunuch), a girl is portrayed sitting on the floor in the throes of grief, but the sound of her tears has been removed. In the celebrated film Still Life, a beautiful bowl of fruit decays at an accelerated pace, creating a memento mori that is more visceral punch than symbolic association.

Taylor-Wood has also explored notions of weight and gravity in elegiac poised photographs and films such as Ascension (2003) and a series of self-portraits that depict the artist floating in mid air without the aid of any visible support, or balancing on the upturned edge of a tipping chair.

Sam Taylor-Wood was born in London in 1967 and has had numerous group and solo exhibitions, including the Venice Biennale (1997) and The Turner Prize (1998).