“The City is a remarkable place, and mostly because of the women who populate it.”
‘”There are probably more women working within the Square Mile than ever before. I have spent the last four months getting to know them…
Together we have created a series of photographs that depict real women who work in the City.
Entrepreneurs, cleaners, Pret workers, receptionists, bankers and PAs make up the women in the pictures. Each intended to be representative of the wider female workforce.
A celebration and mediation through beauty of the female form against the backdrop of the City. A uniquely female perspective.”
– Hannah Starkey
Celebrating City Women
by Hannah Starkey
Celebrating City Women
by Hannah Starkey
Celebrating City Women
by Hannah Starkey
Celebrating City Women
by Hannah Starkey
Celebrating City Women
by Hannah Starkey
Celebrating City Women
by Hannah Starkey
Celebrating City Women
by Hannah Starkey
Celebrating City Women
by Hannah Starkey
Celebrating City Women
by Hannah Starkey
Celebrating City Women
by Hannah Starkey
Celebrating City Women
by Hannah Starkey
Celebrating City Women
by Hannah Starkey
In 2019, the Guildhall Art Gallery appointed Hannah Starkey as Guildhall Artist-in-Residence. The residency aimed to support an artist in the development of new work created in and about the Square Mile. The theme for the inaugural residency was ‘Celebrating City Women’.
For over twenty years Starkey has dedicated her photographic practise to the representation of women, usually in city settings. Starkey’s images look like spontaneous moments caught on camera, but they are in fact staged, set-up and cast. She has usually spent many hours scouting out a location and finding the subject(s) for each image.
The final artworks each depict a carefully choreographed tableau or Mise en Scene, constructed from the day to day life of women working in the City. These images are heroic and epic, multigenerational and multicultural, reflecting and celebrating the diversity of the women themselves.
Hannah Starkey Biography
Hannah Starkey was born in Belfast in 1971. She has received numerous awards throughout her career including the Vogue Condé Nast Award, 1997, the 3rd International Tokyo Photo Biennale’s Award for Excellence, 1999 and the St. James Group Ltd Photography Prize, 2002.
Recent solo exhibitions include Centre Culturel Irlandais, Paris, France, 2016 and Maureen Paley, London, UK, 2015, as well as previous solo exhibitions at Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York, USA, 2013, Mead Gallery, Warwick Arts Centre, Coventry, UK, 2011, Church of Light, a commission by the German Protestant Church, Frankfurt, 2010, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin and Castello di Rivoli, Turin both in 2000 and Cornerhouse, Manchester, UK in 1999. Hannah Starkey was invited to curate a room in History Is Now: 7 Artists Take on Britain, Hayward Gallery, London, UK and in 2014 she selected works for Magnum: One Archive, Three Views | BPB14, Part of Brighton Photo Biennale 2014, De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill on Sea, UK. Her work was included in Transparency, Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, UK, Adventures of the Black Square: Abstract Art and Society 1915 – 2015, Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK, 2015, Northern Ireland: 30 Years of Photography, Belfast Exposed and The MAC, Belfast, UK.
Hannah Starkey’s photographs are represented in the collections of the Centraal Museum in Utrecht, Huis Marseille Museum for Photography in Amsterdam, Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Castello di Rivoli in Turin, Italy, Seattle Art Museum, Tate, and Victoria & Albert Museum (both in London). Starkey lives and works in London.
Celebrating City Women by Hannah Starkey
6 March – 20 May 2020 (Mon – Sat 10am – 5pm; Sun 12noon – 4pm)
Guildhall Art Gallery, EC2V 5AE