Irene Ardan

SELECTED WORK

Personal and commissioned series. Each project starts with a person and an idea — the photographs follow.

Close black and white portrait of a couple a breath apart on the dance floor, her hand at his neck

Close Embrace — Inside London's milongas

Close portrait of a woman lying back against an orange armchair, looking up into the lens

The Rehearsal — A woman holds the gaze

Man lying back on a rock shelf above the sea, tie across his chest

Salt — The film already under way

Musician in a leather jacket and black hat standing in a London street, a red double-decker bus behind her

Denmark Street — Portraits before the album

Letters from the studio

Behind each of these series is a story. I write them down and send them as letters.

Crossed legs dense with handwritten lines, hands resting between them

The Unsent Letter — A poet writes from the skin

Woman in a trench walking across a mosaic floor beneath a vast old-master painting

The Reader — What reading leaves behind

Black and white: woman in a white gown striding across a City street between black cabs

The Square Mile — One woman against the City’s dress code

Close portrait of a laughing woman on the bridge at dusk, city lights coming on

July — Over the water, into the water

Portrait of a woman with crimson paint across her face, hair blowing against a blue sky

Warpaint — The face leaves the image

Woman in a red dress with a painted handprint on her face holding a camera, smoke rising in the dark

Red — The mark and the maker