German-born Royal Academician photographer Wolfgang Tillmans makes intimate portraits, still-lifes and landscapes that often address current political issues and challenge conventionality. He is also known for his innovative abstract images, created in the dark room without a camera, which push the boundaries of the medium of photography.

Originally building his reputation in the 1990s with raw, honest imagery documenting nightclub and LGBT culture, Tillmans’ visual language has evolved in intriguing compositions that reference the traditions of still-life in paintings from a unique perspective. Although Tillmans admits that his pictures are inevitably partly about his experience of the world, he also ‘wants and expects them to function in terms of the viewer and their experience’.

This large-scale photograph is hung from the wall using bulldog clips, a decision which challenges the traditional gallery style of exhibiting pictures. Infused with the warmth of the Sicilian sun, the torn, hanging segment of the orange becomes the focus of the image whilst other aspects become abstracted. The resulting photograph features repeated circular forms and silhouetting which hints at a sense of the celestial.

Tillmans has exhibited his work all over the world. In 2000, he was awarded the Turner Prize, marking the first time the prize had been awarded to a photographer or non-British artist. In 2017, the survey show Wolfgang Tillmans: 2017 was presented by Tate Modern, London. His works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, and the Kunstmuseum Basel, among others. He was elected a Royal Academician in 2013 and lives and works in Berlin and London.