Colour photograph, 'Untitled - May 1997', by Hannah Starkey, 1997. Acquired from the special exhibition `SHINE', held at the NMPFT in Exile, 1998 (girl with moth and mirror).

Colour photograph, 'Untitled - May 1997', by Hannah Starkey, 1997. Girl with moth and mirror.

Hannah Starkey (born 1971) creates large, staged photographs which invite the viewer to speculate about the thoughts and intentions of their subjects. The enigmatic colour photographs act as dramas, often hinting at some unspoken incident, known only to the characters.

In Starkey's large scale tableaux the subjects are engaged in some mysterious scenario. They seem to suggest that we have stumbled across the scene by accident, so the context and the narrative remain elusive.

In this photograph, the main character seems to have been caught unawares, mid day-dream, contemplating a moth which has come to rest on the large mirror. She appears to be in her own world, oblivious to the presence of an older woman, who sits on a different table, watching her with apparent and unexplained malevolence.