Sam Taylor-Johnson's exhibition "Wired" at Galleria Lorcan O'Neill, presents a series of large self-portrait photographs, all of which feature the artist precariously suspended by trapeze wires high above the dry rocky Californian desert.

Taylor-Johnson's new body of work explores the vulnerability of the human condition and the precariousness of life amid all its apparent successes.These images were made in the moon-like landscape of Joshua Tree, famous as the filming location of many Star-Trek and Wild West movies. The artist is dangled upside down from a tall crane, her slight figure silhouetted against the stark blue sky; or she is hoisted by rope and pulley above the enormous rocks, physically vulnerable and fragile. Placed variously in the landscape around her are symbolic props - iconic American cars (the DeLorean DMC-12, a sea-blue Buick) a rabbit, party balloons, bananas, old-fashioned film-studio backdrops - indicative of aspirational dreams of success and plenty. 

Speaking about the visible cables, gears and machinery used to hang her body high in the air, Taylor-Johnston says:

“In this age where every image is re-touched, it felt truthful to show the machinery which supported me in the air and held me suspended between land and sky.”

Of the location, she notes:

“Joshua Tree is a place of spirits and otherworldliness. A place where trees can live up to 1000 years and are all connected underground by a network of roots. Working in Los Angeles gave me the feeling of an outsider living in a magical world of otherness. Joshua Tree seemed to represent that pictorially.”