Maureen Paley is pleased to present the second solo exhibition at the gallery by Anne Hardy.

Hardy's practice focuses on the construction of fictional spaces that she creates and photographs in her studio. Each set is composed with the camera’s perspective in mind. She makes photographs that are rich with intrigue and detail; documenting assembled places that seem to carry the behaviour and personality of fictional and unseen inhabitants. She has a fascination for objects that contain untold stories and the materials she uses have histories that contribute to the narratives her photographs suggest.

Particular types of spaces such as storage areas, communal halls and temporary offices are the focus of Hardy’s photographs. All are run-down and display the vestiges of human storing, ordering and discarding, sites where nature begins to creep into dominance as regular human use declines. One analogy for Hardy’s working process is that of the novelist who develops a character to the point that they seem to take on an independent existence, somehow guiding the writer. Exhibited, her large format photographs appear as windows into the interior spaces she has constructed.

Anne Hardy received an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art in 2000. Recent Solo exhibitions include Maureen Paley, 2006, and Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle, 2004. Her work has been featured in New Photography in Britain at Galleria Civica de Modena, Italy and Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art at the Barbican Gallery, London. Hardy was also featured in group exhibitions at the 52nd Venice Biennale, Bregenzer Kunstverein, Austria and Kunsthalle Helsinki, Finland. In 2006 she was nominated for the MaxMara Art Prize for Women in association with the Whitechapel Gallery.

Her work has been discussed in Vitamin Ph, New Art from London, and The Photograph as Contemporary Art and will feature in the forthcoming 50th issue of Portfolio magazine. Hardy lives and works in London.