Escape Artist (Multicoloured) is one of a series of photographs by Taylor-Wood exploring the relationship between her own body and space. In this photograph, she appears to be suspended above wooden floorboards by eight colourful balloons.

The bold colours of the balloons contrast with the vulnerable figure of Taylor-Wood – slumped, face hidden and dressed only in her underwear. Escape Artist (Multicoloured) is on display at Nottingham Castle, who bought the piece with help from the Art Fund in 2009.

Sam Taylor-Wood works in photography and film, exploring how her subjects relate to space and the exterior world in photos that seem to defy weight and gravity. A recurring theme is the manipulation of reality, whether in her physics-defying images or her videos in which key objects are edited out of a scene.

She was nominated for the Turner Prize in 1998, and in 2002 was commissioned to create a video portrait of David Beckham by the National Portrait Gallery.

Image: Sam Taylor-Wood, Escape Artist (Multicoloured), 2008
© The artist courtesy of White Cube

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