Clara Adolphs, Silent Reply (Group II), 2023. Oil on linen, 162 x 232cm. Courtesy: the artist and Hugo Michell Gallery, Adelaide.

“I like to think that everything exists all at once. Or everything that has existed, still exists. My objective is to make these photographs alive, now. I ask the question, what is the truer evidence of time, the photo or the painting?” – Clara Adolphs

Adolphs draws upon discarded and found photographs which, by their very nature, represent a medium that is infinitely reproducible. And yet, each photograph embodies the ‘truth’ of a specific moment in time. Adolphs continues this process in her studio practice; remaking a painting from a singular image over and over to capture the essence of the moment in time that the photograph was taken.

In Silent Reply, Adolphs paintings each have a ‘pair’ or ‘partner’ to question the idea of the original and the copy, and how meaning is carried or obscured through repetition. In confronting this dilemma, she refers to historian Roland Barthes, who posits that “perhaps we have an invincible resistance to believing in the past, in History, except in the form of myth. The Photograph… puts an end to this resistance: henceforth the past is as certain as the present, what we see on paper is as certain as what we touch.”

If photography is a ‘certificate of presence’, then we might consider every one of Adolphs’ paintings as a similar record of presence. Through the work, she imagines a new landscape – a ‘true’ record of life.

Opening Event: Thursday 20 April, 6 – 8pm.

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