Anna goes for baroque

Anna Gaskell won the Citibank Photography Prize in 2000 for her spooky, glossy tableaux depicting strange young women dressed as nurses. Inspired by the true story of a Texan nurse who murdered several of her patients, Gaskell's nurses were shown performing various actions in a ritualised manner. In tone and content, the images were vaguely Freudian and, despite their basis in reality, were contrived to look like film stills.

This new set of images is loosely based on Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and also makes reference to other literary tales of the American Gothic genre. Set in the baroque splendour of a deserted theatre, these warmly lit photographs have developed an even more sumptuous-sheen than their predecessors. Taken at slightly skewed angles, the central image is interrupted by a female interloper chancing into frame, as if slyly caught by a roaming lens.

Gaskell belongs to a younger generation of American photographers whose work deploys the heightened drama of the artificial narrative. But unlike earlier artists, Gaskell's photographs deploy little subtlety or ambiguity; their dramatic content is heavily portentous rather than genuinely unsettling. Take away the elaborate settings and glossy sheen and, as we see in Gaskell's 21-minute video showing a young woman simply floating under water, the work is exposed as very concept-lite indeed.

Anna Gaskell: Half Life is showing until Jan 25, at White Cube, 48 Hoxton Square N1, Tue to Sat 10am to 6pm, free. Tel: 020 7930 5373. Tube: Old Street