Sam Taylor Wood is a contemporary British artist associated with the Young British Artists movement. Her work often explores themes of time, mortality, and human vulnerability, frequently using photography and video to capture moments that feel both intimate and unsettling. Rather than presenting polished or idealised images, she is interested in exposing what is usually hidden - particularly the passage of time and the inevitability of change. This interest is central to her piece Still Life (2001), a video work that reimagines a traditional artistic genre in a contemporary way.

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Still Life is directly inspired by classical still life paintings, particularly vanitas works from the 17th century. These paintings often used objects such as fruit, flowers, and skulls to symbolise the fleeting nature of life and the certainty of death.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, instead of simply referencing these ideas symbolically, Taylor-Wood brings them into real time. The work presents a bowl of fruit arranged in a way that initially appears painterly and static, but over time the fruit begins to rot, collapse, and decay. By using time lapse, she makes a process that is usually gradual and unnoticed feel immediate and unavoidable. In doing so, she shifts the still life from something that preserves a moment to something that actively reveals its disappearance.

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One of the most striking elements of the work is the inclusion of a modern, man made object - a plastic pen - placed among the fruit. While everything natural undergoes visible transformation, the pen remains completely unchanged. This contrast introduces a tension between the natural and the artificial. However, rather than simply suggesting that man made objects outlast nature, the pen can be interpreted as representing a human desire for permanence and control. It feels out of place within the composition, almost careless and intrusive, as if it does not belong within the natural cycle unfolding around it. In this way, the pen highlights the unnaturalness of permanence itself, suggesting that human attempts to resist change are ultimately disconnected from the environment they exist within.

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What I find most compelling about Still Life is how it forces the viewer to confront change that would normally go unnoticed. There is a big difference between the first and last seconds of the video, a difference that is clear and obvious and one that we are bound to notice however, decay is something that happens constantly and because it is a slow process, it's easy to ignore. By compressing time, Taylor-Wood removes that distance, making the transformation process impossible to overlook. The work becomes less about the fruit itself and more about the act of witnessing change. It creates a sense of discomfort, as something familiar and traditionally "beautiful" is gradually reduced to something unrecognisable.

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Personally, I interpret the work as a reflection on the instability of everything around us. The fruit follows a natural and inevitable process, while the pen attempts to remain fixed, unchanged. This contrast reinforces the idea that nothing is truly meant to last, and that attempts to create permanence are, in some ways, a form of denial. Rather than demonstrating control, the presence of the pen emphasises how little control humans actually have within a constantly evolving environment.

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This directly links to my own project, which explores how change in nature often happens unnoticed. Like Taylor-Wood, I am interested in revealing subtle transformations that are usually ignored, whether through shifts in light, atmosphere, or environment. However, her work has also influenced the way I think about the relationship between nature and the man made, particularly the tension between attempted permanence and change.

 

While this is a theme that has been explored many times before, I think the significance lies in the fact that it can never be approached in exactly the same way twice. Photography, by its nature, captures specific moments that cannot be replicated, meaning that even when exploring similar ideas, the outcomes will always differ. This is especially true when working with natural elements and processes of change, as these are constantly shifting and unpredictable. In this sense, repetition does not weaken the idea but reinforces it, as each attempt reveals a slightly different version of the same underlying concept. For me, this unpredictability is not a limitation but the point of the work itself.