Sam Taylor-Wood
Sam Taylor-Wood
Samantha Louise "Sam" Taylor-Johnson OBEis an English filmmaker, photographer and visual artist. Her directorial feature film debut came in 2009 with Nowhere Boy, a film based on the childhood experiences of the Beatles songwriter and singer John Lennon. She is one of a group of artists known as the Young British Artists...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPhotographer
Date of Birth4 March 1967
art emotional music retreat trauma understand
I understand what it is to go through emotional trauma and retreat and go into the world of your imagination. I understand how art and music can be a place of safety in a world of reinvention.
art artist best came felt room school sit understanding
At school, I always felt the art room was the place where you could sit and talk. It was a place of solace. I wasn't the best artist at school by a long shot; it was more the understanding and the support that came from that room.
art london objects
I went to Goldsmith College of Art in London in the '80s and there I made sculptures, but the objects had nothing to do with how I was thinking. I was making beautifully sanded wooden boxes!
art badly came endless family meant saw
Seriously, I wanted to be an artist because I saw that it meant endless possibilities. I came from a badly managed family background, so art was a way of reinventing myself.
artist psychosis two
I often joke that I straddle psychosis and neurosis, and that being an artist keeps me in the middle, so I can work between the two.
art morning new-york
I feel the art world in New York has a stronger following than Britain. If you go to a New York art district on a Saturday morning, it will be so busy with families and openings - art is much more ingrained in the culture.
art way possibility
I wanted to become an artist because it meant endless possibilities. Art was a way of reinventing myself.
focus future hard life mortality plenty seize stared whatever
I've been through plenty in my life where I've really had to focus on the day ahead... because, as I know, the future is, you know, whatever the future is... Once you've stared mortality that hard in the face, you really seize the day.
britain scarlet
Britain can sometimes feel like a very small village, and you're this, I dunno, scarlet woman they're all gossiping about.
create strange time
I struggle if I have chaos around me, but at the same time, if I don't have it, I'm uncomfortable. It's a strange thing: If I don't have chaos, I create it.
cancer colon felt followed grasp mastectomy
When I had cancer - of the colon first, followed by breast cancer and a mastectomy - my motto used to be 'Drips by day, Prada by night.' I felt that I had to grasp it in the same way as you'd take on any challenge.
cameraman endlessly helpless quite similar total trying work
My work is made on lines similar to those of a film production. A lot of my work is kind of bureaucratic, endlessly phoning up people, trying to find the cameraman and the lighting man, because I am a total technology-phobe, quite helpless with equipment.
fears patient people primary saying second seen terrible
I had two primary cancers, which was pretty unusual. And when I got the second one, people told me such terrible bad-news stories, they instigated fears that weren't there in the first place. I do remember with such gratitude one doctor saying to me, 'Two primaries? That's nothing. I've seen a patient with six.'
fought
I feel lucky to be getting older. The fact that I made it to 30 and then 40 was big enough. So I can't get too down on getting older; otherwise, it kind of undoes everything I've fought for.