Lumber, 2003
"It took about two months to set everything up in this picture, which was taken in December 2005. It's not a real place; it was built in my studio in Hackney, London. The whole space is structured around the position of the camera. It's put together as a photograph, rather than an installation. Sometimes I go back and reshoot things, moving something 10cm this way or that. The actual moment of taking the final photograph can almost seem - not an anticlimax, but such a tiny thing. I usually start with abandoned objects I find in the street. All the old science equipment here came from a school. I put a lot of specific things into the image, without making specific references, so people can bring different things to it. There is no single explanation. I wanted to create the feeling that there are unfamiliar systems at work here. For example, maybe it was reasonable for someone to label the sections of a basketball. I always use a similar setup for my pictures, which are taken with a medium-format camera and wide-angle lens. I try to make it look as if the light has come from within the space. In this shot, it comes from the skylight, which is intended to look like daylight, and from the red bulb, rather than anything behind the camera. I just enjoy this picture. It's always hard to choose a favourite image, but there's something about this one that surprises me more than the others. You have certain pieces as an artist that you feel push your practice on, show you new things. It surprises me that I made this one."
Untitled VI, 2005
Hardy's practice involves constructing the spaces in her photographs from scratch. Her props are found materials, often the discarded odds and ends that wind up in jumble sales or city skips. She has a fascination for objects with a past; whether careworn or unloved, her materials have histories that contribute to the narratives the photographs suggest. These objects inhabit rooms that are fashioned in the artist's studio but, as impressive as her DIY skills are, Hardy's real talent lies in making pictures rather than constructing sets. Each scenario is composed with the camera's perspective in mind. Hardy is interested in the two-dimensional image and uses her props the way a painter uses gestural brushstrokes, to punctuate the space and convey a sense of rhythm and movement across the picture plane. Falling curves of curtains are speckled with a baffling array of butterflies and other insects. Foam sealant seeps between the cracks of walls and ceilings. Recurring round forms of light bulbs and balloons cluster like spores.
