Tamany Baker

Tamany Baker is an artist who uses photography to examine our inner worlds and has exhibited widely in the UK and internationally. Teaching photography at the UWE and Plymouth Universities she also holds an MA in Documentary Photography. She has recently published her first monograph Transient Beauty and the Living with Wolfie series will be published later this year by Dewi Lewis. In 2009 she won the Conceptual and Constructed professional Fine Art category in the Sony World Photography Awards.

Living with Wolfie

The series Living with Wolfie (2008) documents my response to the 'presents' that Wolfie, my beloved cat, brings into the home. At first, I experienced some kind of horror: these dead creatures waiting for me in different parts of my house. Then I looked at Wolfie and tried to understand the instincts which brought them there. It reminded me of the difficulty I have in understanding the behaviours of the opposite sex or of a different tribe. At the time, my ex-partner had been unfaithful and I saw some parallels in coming to terms with the difficult habits of the 'other', whilst also accepting their difference.

Untitled from the series, Living with Wolfie

"The ceremonial aspect of these photographs is similar to the Victorian practice of making a shrine from photographs of deceased loved ones, using flowers and locks of hair to preserve the memory of the living. With these images, I am instead making a photograph of a shrine, engaging with the changing patterns of nature to bring myself closer to the memory of death and loss. The ritualised photograph becomes my way of coming to terms with the traces of violence. It may also be a way of acknowledging certain destructive behaviours within myself (my own alien 'other'), as I become Wolfie's accomplice in playing with the dead animals."