WHAT WE HOLD: Hannah Starkey at 5 New Street Square

Hannah Starkey’s urban scenes delicately straddle the boundaries and balances we maintain - in public and private, in posture and presence, in the spaces we occupy and the roles we perform. By staging women in the city, she portrays the ordinariness of everyday life with extraordinary theatricality and emotional resonance that blurs the lines between the internal and external world of her actors. Whether singled out from a crowd or by their lonesome, her figures are caught in an isolation peaceful and intrusive. The contemplative orchestration of her shots invites the audience to imagine and partake the vague stories unfolding within. By leaving her works untitled, she reinforces this participation as these quietly surreal scenes bear the implacable ambiguity of a dream or memory.