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Sam Taylor-Wood
Shortlisted: 1998

Sam Taylor-Wood works with film, video and photography, producing work which focuses on a range of fundamental human emotions, such as desire, anger, loneliness and boredom. Working with professional actors, amateurs and friends, she loosely orchestrates scenes, often focusing on moments of tension created when opposites collide. Through her work she draws attention to the role of the mass media, especially film, as an echo-chamber for all our expressions and gestures, both original and acquired.

Sam Taylor-Wood was born in London, England in 1967 and graduated from Goldsmiths College in 1990. She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1998 for her prize-winning presentation at the Venice Biennale, as well as her solo exhibitions at the Kunsthalle, Zurich and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Denmark. Her work was selected because of its 'acutely perceptive explorations of human relationships through photography and film.'

This information has been taken from The Turner Prize: Twenty Years, by Virginia Button, Tate Publishing, 2003.

View Sam Taylor-Wood in the Tate Collection