Annabel Elgar is a photographic based artist who lives and works in London. She has an MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art and her work has featured in numerous international exhibitions and publications throughout Europe and North America.
Elgar's photographs are poised between the fairytale and the everyday. Sources, often mythic, are gleaned from new stories, the internet, folklore, literature and art history. Conceived as 'staged' photography, her work blurs the line between the constructed and the documentary. Annabel Elgar presents real or presumed facts, referring in a poetic and refined way to historical episodes that still raise doubts about secret plots or obscure drawings never revealed. Photography itself is staged, narration is not a work at the service of documentation, but the affirmation of how the search for truth can be ephemeral. What Annabel offers us are often only clues, the details of a representation that should be looked at and observed as an enigma, in which the artist at the same time plays the role of the protagonist and the (occult?) director.

Curriculum Vitae

ANNABEL ELGAR
Born in London in 1971. She lives and works in London.

EDUCATION:
1999-2001 Royal College of Art, MA Photography
1990-94 Central London Polytechnic, BA (Hons) Film, Video & Photographic Arts- 1st Class

SELECTED SOLO & TWO PERSON EXHIBITIONS:
2019 Noon In the Desert, The Jugg Art Foundation, Ipswich, UK
2018 The Dust in My Pocket, Metronom
Atlas House, Ipswich
2012  MIA, Milan (solo presentation)
2011  Interludio, Metronom, Modena, Italy
2010  Wapping Project Bankside, London

2008 Museum of New Art (MONA), Detroit, USA

2007 Nepente Gallery, Milan, Italy
Gallery F7, Month of Photography, Bratislava, Slovakia

2006 Secrets and Mysteries, Zephyr, Mannheim, Germany (Annabel Elgar & Anne Kathrin Greiner)

Black Flag (2), The Wapping Project, London (The Jerwood Commissions)
Galleri Image, Aarhus, Denmark
2004 Black Flag (1), The Wapping Project, London (The Jerwood Commissions)
Upstream Gallery, Amsterdam (Annabel Elgar & Cristian Andersen)
2000 Southampton City Art Gallery, Southampton
South Hill Park Arts Centre, Bracknell
1997 Zone Gallery, Newcastle upon Tyne
1996 Islington Arts Factory, London

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS:
2018 Uncommon or Garden, Jugg Art Foundation, Ipswich, Suffolk, UK
  Annabel Elgar / Ryan Gander at Atlas House, group shows at Atlas House & the
Jugg Foundation, Ipswich Biennial, Ipswich, UK
          Photoworks Presents Collaborate at Free Range, Truman Brewery, London, UK Ipswich Biennial, group shows at Atlas House & the Jugg Foundation
2017 NUCLEUS- Imagining Science, Noorderlicht Photo Festival, Groningen, The Netherlands
ANTOLOGIA, Metronom, Modena
YIA Art Fair, Brussels, Metronom booth
2016 Through the Looking Glass, Metronom, Modena
  Dell’infingimento, works from Mazzotta Collection, Contemporary Art Museum, Lissone, Italy
Setting out, Apexart, New York, USA
Photography is Magic, Aperture Foundation, New York (curator: Charlotte Cotton)
2015 Fotografia Contemporanea dall’ Europa nord-occidentale, Fondazione Fotografia Modena

Il sole è cieco, Galerie Polaris, Paris
           Prix Elysée, Musée de L’Elysée, Lausanne, Switzerland
2014   Belfast Photo Festival (touring), Sirius Arts Centre, Cobh, Ireland
2013   Sitting with the qualities of a mountain, Blyth Gallery, Imperial College, London
           Spectacle, Belfast Photo Festival (selectors: Brett Rogers, Alec Soth, Donovan Wylie &
           Paul Seawright)
           Creekside Open, APT Gallery, London (selector: Ceri Hand)
2012  First come first served, The Lion & Lamb Gallery, London
           wunderCAMERA, Metronom,

Edition IV, The Wapping Project Bankside, London

COLLECTIONS:
Museum of Fine Arts Houston
Fondazione Fotografia Modena
Musée de L’Elysée

Bibliography

SELECTED BOOKS AND CATALOGUES:

2015 Contemporary Photography from North-Western Europe, SKIRA
Prix Elysée, The Nominees’ Book

2014   The Wapping Project on Paper (Black Dog Publishing)
2011  ‘Interludio’ (Metronom catalogue)
2011   ‘Please Drive Slowly Through Our Village’ (FOLD catalogue)
2009  ‘Theatres of the Real’ FotoMuseum Antwerp/Photoworks (ISBN: 978-1-903796-26-9)
2008 ‘In Our World: New Photography in Britain’, SKIRA  (ISBN: 978-88-6130-781-0)
2007   ‘Month of Photography, Bratislava’ (catalogue- Spoločnost’ FOTOFO), pp. 58-59
           ‘Photomonth in Krakow 2007’ (catalogue) p. 164
2006   ‘Twilight: Photography in the Magic Hour’ (V&A:Merrell, London/ New York, 2006,
            Martin Barnes & Kate Best) p. 21 (ISBN-13: 978-1858943534)
            ‘We Were Until We Weren’t’ (Galleri Image catalogue)

2005 ‘The Madness of Paradise’ (Sweet Briar College publications)

SELECTED REVIEWS AND ARTICLES:

2021 Blurred Boundaries Between Dreams & Reality - A photo essay by Annabel Elgar, 212 magazine

2018 Photomonitor (online) (June, 2018)

Showcase (online), Photoworks UK

2015    The Guardian, Art & Design- Photography (online) (Ottobre, 2015)
2014    Le Temps, Switzerland (1st July 2014)
2011     Source, Photographic Review, Winter 2011, Issue 69 (Interview John Mathews)
            Art Review, ‘Please Drive Slowly Through Our Village,’ Rebecca Geldard, p. 134,
             October
2010  ‘Top 10 London Photographers’, Spoonfed (online) 4th August 2010
           Time Out, ‘In the Studio’, Helen Sumpter (April 29-May 5 2010) p. 43
2009   EXTRA, FotoMuseum Antwerp, (Summer 2009 pp. 34-37)

2009 .Cent, Spring/Summer 2009 (p. 39)

Le Monde Diplomatique, ‘British

Awards

SELECTED AWARDS:
2019 Shortlisted for the Luma Rencontres  Dummy Book Award Arles 2019,
           Le Recontres d’Arles
2017   Daylight Photo Award, Harry Ransom Center, Austin, Texas (juror’s pick)
2014   Nominated for the Prix Elysée, Musée de L’Elysée, Switzerland
2013  Shorlisted for Creekside Open 13 (selector Ceri Hand)