Comparison of Three Artists

Sam Taylor Wood (1967 - )

The main theme that Wood focuses on is humanism. This features in one of her most recognisable pieces A Little Death from 2002, where a rabbit which is on its back dead and a piece of fruit beside it. Gradually as the piece goes on we witness the rabbit decay and slowly get eaten by maggots but the peach stays untouched. In her installations, she mainly focuses on how short lived life is and the hold of which death takes upon things. The technique she uses is a time lapse and this follows all the way through piece.

The positioning of the rabbit follows similar traits from 16th-17th artwork known as traditional Vanitas paintings. The word translates from latin meaning emptiness and it is shown during the piece.


Tony Oursler (1979 - )

A main theme Tony Oursler follows in his pieces is distortion using the human body. Most of his pieces feature parts of the face, pieced back together showing a sort of mutations, he also shows close ups of people, faces and objects. This then adds to the effect of distress and an inhuman nature of the pieces. They tend to confuse people and scare them as they are unsure on the meaning behind them. One of his famous pieces which featured in a gallery was Guilty from 1995. This piece feature a mattress, a dress and a projector. The face is projected onto a ballon object where the person who appears trapped under the mattress begins to talk to you. The piece featured in an exhibition in Chicago called Without You I'm Nothing.


Douglas Gordon (1966 - )

Douglas Gordon is a famous artists who creates pieces using things from Classical Literature to HollyWood films, using some of the most famous from Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho to Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver. Gordon uses familiar imagery that we all known and twists it and gives is an ironic touch. One of his most famous pieces is 24 Hour Psycho from 1993 where he takes Alfred Hitchcock's most famous films and slows it down, going from 24 frames per second to 2 frames per second which takes the element of suspense away from the piece. The running time for this piece was 24 hours hence its name. This piece introduced common themes to his work for example time and memory, complicity and duplicity and lastly light and dark. 24 Hour Psycho torments the viewer into expecting things but due to the slow nature of it, all the suspense is taken away but is generous at the same time as it gives the viewer the opportunity to analyse the film.