British artist Anne Hardy constructs fantastic environments before her camera in her studio. She was born in 1970 in the UK and received her MA in 2000 from The Royal College of Art. Unlike most artists, who endeavor to find unusual places to photograph, Hardy starts from scratch and builds her own surreal interiors, with full knowledge of how she wants to shoot them. For the artist, the process begins after she finds an object that inspires her; she then starts from scratch and builds a room within her studio that would accommodate said object. In many images, her constructed environs are cluttered in an obsessive manner. There are groupings of similar objects and bizarre numbers placed within the room, in an attempt to catalog its trappings. The viewer is left to image who inhabits these spaces, and can construct narratives with the clues Hardy has left in the rooms. These large scale tableaux are notable for never containing the people who inhabit these spaces; the scenes are left, ready for their eccentric owner's return.
Of the tableaux I've seen, I am particularly fascinated by the one titled, "Drift". Perhaps it's all my experience with creating and destroying leaf piles in my youth, but her image of a command center buried within a great drift of leaves sets my mind spinning. The lighting in the scene is provided by, in the context of the image, the sun above the leaves. This scene triggers a host of bizarre stories about the necessity for such a room or who would be obligated to station it. It is this sense of mystery that has kept me making photographs, always trying to exercise the viewer's dedication and imagination.
http://www.anne-hardy.co.uk
http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/anne_hardy.htm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2007/jan/11/photography.architecture
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