Hardy's practice focuses on the construction of spaces that she creates and photographs in her studio. Each set is composed with the camera's perspective in mind. She makes works that are rich with intrigue and detail, documenting assembled places that seem to carry the behaviour and personality of fictional and unseen inhabitants.
Maureen Paley is pleased to present the second solo exhibition at the gallery by Anne Hardy.
Hardy’s practice focuses on the construction of spaces that she creates and photographs in her studio. Each set is composed with the camera’s perspective in mind. She makes works that are rich with intrigue and detail, documenting assembled places that seem to carry the behaviour and personality of fictional and unseen inhabitants.
Hardy is inspired by utopian and improvised architectural forms as well as used and abandoned objects. She develops each work over a period of several months, creating a logic for the space through the materials she constructs with. The final pieces are a combination of fiction and reality, the artist’s presence and that of an imagined protagonist becoming entwined.
Hardy states that she sees the works as a form of ‘fictional documentary’, asking us to consider and imagine spaces in a created world that we may not actually ever see. Exhibited, her large format photographs appear as windows into these interiors.
Anne Hardy received an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art in 2000. Recent Solo exhibitions include Maureen Paley, 2006, and Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, 2004. Her work has been featured in New Photography in Britain at Galleria Civica de Modena, Italy and Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art at the Barbican Gallery, London. Hardy was also featured in group exhibitions at the 52nd Venice Biennale, Bregenzer Kunstverein, Austria and Kunsthalle Helsinki, Finland. In 2006 she was nominated for the MaxMara Art Prize for Women in association with the Whitechapel Gallery.
Her work has been discussed in Vitamin Ph, New Art from London, and The Photograph as Contemporary Art and will feature in the forthcoming 50th issue of Portfolio magazine. Hardy lives and works in London.
Private view: Friday 9 October 6.00 - 8.30 pm
Maureen Paley
21 Herald Street, London
free admission