Now & Then is a photographic visual exploration of imagery by visual artist Clair Robins. Robins inspired works was prompted by a beautiful faded black and white family portrait of her late Grandma ‘Edna’ taken over a century ago. Hung on the dining room wall, the framed print blended in and was almost lost amongst modern family photographs. However, Edna’s young eyes were compelling to Clair, and this connection inspired a set of portraits and still life work fuelled by photographic techniques from the past. Robins has replicated the atmosphere and mood created by Victorian portrait photographers when they shot subjects in daylight studios, capturing the mesmerising gaze of her daughters and nostalgic objects, making her imagery incredibly compelling to the viewer. Her nostalgic work symbolically probes photographic history and merges ‘decades’ together using inanimate objects, family and subtle lighting to reveal hidden fragments of the past.

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About
In a world of uncertainty, I can always rely on image-making to express my ideas and concepts. I am a photographic visual artist and educator in FE from Leicester, UK. My project work often explores still life image-making and portraiture whilst embracing personal memories, sense of being, and nostalgia. I use a range of creative processes, both digital and darkroom, to realise my projects. I often conceptually reconstruct scenarios whilst exploring daily life through narrative and visual language. My latest works are surrounded by the frustration of lockdown dystopia, identity and an ever-changing family. Collections, artefacts, portraiture merge and collide with memorabilia and aphoristic humour to express my passions, frustrations and messages on life. To me, the mundane is never mundane.