Event date: 18 September
Review by Danusia Wurm
Image of Daniel & Clara from their publication Birding
Touched by Adam and Eve
It’s not often that an artist’s presentation is so eloquent and haunting that it’s hard to describe it in words. Such was the talk delivered by the artist Daniel & Clara to a captivated ncas audience at Norwich School’s Blake Studio.
“We are the work and the work is us”
Since meeting in 2010, the artist Daniel & Clara have lived a shared life of creative experimentation across a wide range of media, exploring the nature of human experience, perception and reality. Their art is solely based on their life experience, where they intensely observe the inner and outer landscape of themselves and that around them.
At its core, their practice is a meditation on the human search for meaning and the ways we attempt to make sense of our existence during our brief time on this planet.
Whilst the moving image and performance lie at the heart of their practice (this is how they met), Daniel & Clara also use digital, analogue and lenticular photography, installation and, unconventionally, mail art - correspondence and small images sent by post, originally to complete strangers (in an effort to connect) and latterly to subscribers. The mail art is particularly worthy of comment in that at a time of the “short read”, sound bites and endless scrolling, Daniel & Clara produce the opposite – exquisite often haunting text, that conjure up images of hyper-focussed clarity imbued with an underlying sense of atmosphere and place.
Extract from Letter 7 of “The Naturalist Letters”, Daniel & Clara
Daniel & Clara do not dictate how the viewer might perceive their work.
“One thing we are always trying to do is to place the viewer or reader at the centre of the work in some way, to not make art that tells them what to think or feel but to create a space where they can become conscious of their own thoughts or feelings”.
The viewer enters very much at the artist’s invitation. Echoing the work of sculptor and environmentalist Sir Richard Long RA (also a previous ncas speaker), their work appears to slow down time. As Amanda Geitner eloquently puts it “There is a hallucinatory intoxication to the body of work”.
“Two humans. One artist ”
The quantum leap from the “inner” to the “outer” came from a seminal visit to the Avebury stone circle in Wiltshire in 2017 where the relationship between nature and the human psyche rang out to them like a clarion call. Their “cataclysmic” encounter with Avebury led Daniel & Clara to permanently move to the UK in 2018 and begin make work in response to the British landscape. This period produced, amongst other works The Avebury Letters - letters written from the perspective of the Avebury stones! It was also at this time the artist first appeared in front of the the camera as its subject, transitioning from the “observer” to the “observed”.
2020 found them in lockdown on Mersea Island, near Colchester in Essex. At a time fraught with tension, isolation and anxiety, they noticed a “turn up” in the volume of nature. This is beautifully captured in On the Island a series of 100” videos “like small notes, sketches or diaries” which document the eerie stillness of the pandemic, interspersed with the insistent calls of nature. Other works at this time include The Yellow Letters (yellow being the colour associated with illness and disease) which describe the artist's isolation during the pandemic.
Throughout 2022 Daniel & Clara presented Landscape Imaginary, a series of exhibitions and events of their work across the East of England. This was accompanied by the publication of the first monograph about their work. Their continuing fascination with the “observer” and “observed” continued with Birding (2023) a body of work about the human gaze, exploring the optical and psychological processes at play when humans look at nature, and Birds and Beasts a poignant series of hand-painted photos of dead animals encountered in their daily walks. Daniel & Clara say “Painting became a way to have a deeper engagement with the subject and to bring into the photograph… a vitality of life while lived …” The series is ongoing.
A Sudden Downpour, The Lost Estate, Daniel & Clara
In 2024, commissioned by Norwich Castle Museum & Gallery, Daniel & Clara produced The Lost Estate, a series of six large-scale photographs that explore the sometimes fraught relationship between humans and the natural world through imagined narratives taking place in the gardens of a country estate. The series was conceived in response to the work of the British 19th Century Romantic movement, particularly John Crone.
Going forward, Daniel & Clara’s work continues to focus on the complex relationship between humans and the natural world, particularly exploring the climate crisis as a psychological crisis.
“We feel like Adam and Eve at the end of the world confronting the beauty and terror of existing”
Their latest work "ANGELS" (September 2025), is a series of painted photographs of Exeter Cathedral's eroded stone angels. Covered in layers of green paint the angels emerge and dissolve suspended in an absence of absence and presence. For the artist, these fragile weather worn figures have become a powerful metaphor for the erosion of traditional structures and shared myths. “In a world where such guiding narratives have faded, ANGELS expresses a deep sense of disorientation – a longing for meaning, guidance and connection”.
It seems somehow appropriate to close this essay on the subject of angels. Mysterious extensions of a higher power, these otherworldly creatures are often seen to presage momentous events. It calls to mind Daniel & Clara’s practice in response to the ongoing climate crisis.
Their art is inquiring and reflective but also fiercely analytical and visionary. It permeates with a quiet wisdom and space to think.
Our thanks go to Daniel & Clara for their superb presentation, to Lisa Newby, Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art at Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery for her excellent introduction and to the Norwich School for their effortless hosting.
