Thomas Zanon-Larcher on show

Thomas Zanon-Larcher’s photographs recall the work of Claude Chabrol and Ingmar Bergman – they are dramas that examine existential anxieties. In his first solo exhibition at the Wapping Project Bankside, the artist explores the space between film, drama and reality. Here we see images of women living ordinary lives, testing the boundaries of fear, transgression, escape and pursuit in contemporary society. Zanon-Larcher’s photographs scrape away at ordinary fears, commonplace fantasies, catching at nerve ends.

Born in Italy, Zanon-Larcher originally studied structural engineering. Fascinated by process, and by the physics and machinery of photography, his work is distinguished by its mix of un-staged and narrative images that capture his protagonists’ isolation, often fixing moments of introspection and solemnity as they turn or move away from the camera.

Falling: A Part gathers a selection of photographs belonging to Zanon-Larcher’s narrative work. With these works, Zanon-Larcher continues his ongoing interest in performance, artifice and the construction of female identity in visual culture, which he has already explored in depth in his backstage work within the fashion industry. This has led him to collaborate with fashion designers who tend to challenge conventional expressions of female identity– the likes of Yohji Yamamoto, Alexander McQueen, Dries van Noten, Martin Margiela and Haider Ackerman.

Zanon-Larcher shoots at the precise moment when the essence of the unfolding drama can be captured in a single frame. Caught in an instant of pensive solitude, his protagonists are on the move, sometimes escaping someone or something, it seems always aware of where they are heading.

Falling: A Part is on exhibit from 25 January to 9 March 2013 at Wapping Project Bankside, London.

See our reports on Yohji Making Waves at the Wapping Project here.