Clare Strand

In 2003, Clare Strand invited six girls to have their aura photographed in a local New-Age holistic remedy shop. Their images were output as colour Polaroids for £5 each. By working with young girls, Strand is referencing photography’s inception, its early associations with otherworldliness and its connection to young women and girls. This is exemplified through protagonists like The Fox Sisters, Elsie Wright, Frances Griffths and Stanislava Tomczyk, among others. These ethereal, haloed images, which resemble Orthodox icons, were then re-photographed and meticulously produced as large formal black-and-white images and titled "Photisms" - referring to false perceptions or hallucinations of light.

Questioning the photographic medium by manipulating and repurposing it’s established uses is inherent in Strand’s practice. By removing the seductive colour, she renders the aura information redundant, implying that any form of portraiture, including when made by an aura camera, might not be a window to the sitters’ souls, or a revealer of spiritual layers of a subject. Her deliberate examination of the boundaries between low and high art can also often be seen in Strand's oeuvre, ranging from the complex transmission of images to vastly upscaled paintings in Discrete Channel with Noise to her Fairground Hoopla stall, where players can win her editioned images in a game of chance.