In this new body of work, Clara Adolphs turns inward, exploring the quiet threshold between memory and imagination. “I often see myself in the people that I paint, or find something familiar about them,” she explains. “I wanted to draw into this focus with the show.”

Working from photographs both found and taken, Adolphs isolates figures from their original contexts and places them in new, intimate compositions that speak to a silent conversation between artist and subject. “Perhaps the repetition of painting brings me closer to them?” Melding borrowed memories with her own, she has been led by a desire to distil moments into feeling, creating a sense of quiet contemplation.

“I repeat paintings to see each quick line and brush stroke reveal the essence of the life that once was, over and over again, as if it lives.”

Clara Adolphs, Candlelight I, 2025, oil on linen, 84 x 64 cm