Olaf's Liberation series was shot for a French daily newspaper and explores the dilemmas of consumerism in unexpected ways, as here, for example, with its suggestion of gothic melodrama. "What is our future, where will we go to? There's boredom in all this buying," Olaf told The National, explaining that he had been asked to create a shoot to reflect the global economic crisis. Courtesy Erwin Olaf / Carbon 12

Margaret comes from Erwin Olaf's Grief series, which looks back to the 1960s, suggesting frustration and unhappiness in an era of rising prosperity. Courtesy Erwin Olaf / Carbon 12

The Hallway from the Hope series. Olaf says he briefed his subjects to imagine that the woman has told her boyfriend she no longer loves him. "This is that split second between action and reaction." Courtesy Erwin Olaf / Carbon 12

Olaf's photographs are shot through with echoes of film noir and subversive style cues that make for compelling if uneasy viewing, as much in his commercial magazine work as in his studio creations. The image on the left is from a shoot he did for City magazine's Luxe Life issue in the US. Courtesy Erwin Olaf / Carbon 12

In The Boxing School, another from the Hope series, the tension is not just between the two pugilists but also between the aesthetics of the sport and a body language that suggests a deeper, more emotional antagonism.Courtesy Erwin Olaf / Carbon 12

High Tension: an exhibition of Erwin Olaf's cliffhanger art

The National staff

Erwin Olaf is an Amsterdam-based photographic artist, famous for his daring and provocative work. He has exhibited around the world, including at the Chelsea Art Museum in New York, the Bilbao Art Centre and the Moscow Museum of Modern Art, and has won numerous international art and media prizes. His images are a little like the photographic equivalent of a still life: carefully crafted and painstakingly designed to create an atmosphere.

Art: The National looks

Exhibitions, reviews, news, features and all things art

Art

"I shared my studio for a long time with a figurative painter and I was very jealous," he said in an interview with The National to mark the opening of his current Dubai show, High Tension. "You have two or three layers in painting and I wanted to know how I could achieve that."

Olaf, who was born in the Netherlands in 1959 and studied journalism at the Utrecht School of Journalism, is also well known for his commercial work, notably advertising campaigns for Diesel Jeans (for which he won the Silver Lion at the Cannes International Advertising Festival), Lavazza, BMW, Microsoft and Nintendo. He is a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine, The Sunday Times Magazine and Elle.

His highly stylised and perfectly conceived scenes draw the viewer in, even to settings that on the face of it appear mundane. You are keen to know what has happened, what has just been said and what is about to happen.

High Tension is at the Carbon 12 gallery in Dubai until November 10. For more details go to www.carbon12dubai.com. See also www.erwinolaf.com.

Follow us on Twitter and keep up to date with the latest in arts and lifestyle news at twitter.com/LifeNationalUAE