(Above) Sophie Ristelhueber, Eleven Blowups #10 (2006). © Sophie Ristelhueber/adagp
Sophie Ristelhueber, the French conceptualist who has uncovered the physical and geographical scars of war and conflict in a series of frequently brave personal journeys, has been announced as the winner of the £30,000 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize.
The 60-year-old has spent 25 years capturing epicentres of volatility across the world, becoming renowned for her unsentimental, no-holds-barred approach to presenting the damage wreaked upon bodies and earth by combat in destinations including the Balkans and Kuwait.
Sophie Ristelhueber, Vulaines I (1989). Installation View at Joost Declercq Gallery, Ghent, 1989. © Sophie Ristelhueber/adagp
She has cited a campaign in Beirut in the early 1980s as the starting point for her snapshots of architecture reduced to rubble by the ravages of war.
As photo-journalists sought demonstrably shocking, orthodox images of disaster, Ristelhueber became one of the first photographers to survey damaged terrain from a broader viewpoint, working from planes to map the impact on the land.
Donovan Wylie, The Maze Prison. Sterile, Phase 1 (2003). Northern Ireland. © Donovan Wylie/ Magnum
Perhaps best known for producing graphic images of stitched wounds and victims recovering after surgery, she has won the award for her current two-month retrospective at the Jeu de Paume in Paris, having also had major exhibitions at venues including New York's Museum of Modern Art and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
"Sophie Ristelhueber's fragmented images explore the terrain of the real and imagined, addressing urgent issues of trauma, loss, memory and conflict," said jury Chair Brett Rogers.
"Her surgically precise images, radically installed, push the boundaries of the photographic medium."
Anna Fox, Hampshire Pram Race (2006). From the series Back to the Village 1999-. © Anna Fox, courtesy James Hyman Gallery, London
UK photographers Anna Fox and Donovan Wylie and American urban landscape documenter Zoe Leonard were edged out by Ristelhueber, earning consolatory awards of £3,000 each.
All four finalists will have their work displayed at The Photographers' Gallery in London until April 18 2010. The show will then tour to Frankfurter Kunstverein in Germany.
