Clare Strand - SKIRTS

It is always a pleasure when something arrives in my post office box that looks like a book. A photobook to be precise. And so it was this morning with the unexpected arrival of Clare Strand's new bookwork SKIRTS. Thank you Clare.

Clare Strand is a conceptual artist. Her work deals with the nature of things and her photographs do what photography does best - an examination of the ordinary and the mystery to be found in the everyday. Phillipe Starck says in his introduction to SKIRTS, one of art's distinctions is to provide maximum emotion using minimum means. Clare Strand delivers. Strand's work is simple yet substantial and wryl intelligent, and thankfully avoids the cleverness that I increasingly see in work, generally made by photographers in the absence of an idea.

Subject matter dominates her work – photography and film are the mediums through which her enquiries are mapped. Strand is interested by imagery in which the aesthetic are secondary to function. Taking inspiration from forensic imagery, instruction manuals, the conventions of signage, the mechanics of spirit photography and photography employed to offer evidence of an event or a task, her work treads the uncertain boundaries between the expected and the absurd.

SKIRTS is a beautifully realized hardback work published by GOST in an edition of 500 copies. It is available from PHOTOBOOKSTORE in the UK - HERE.

You can see more on Clare Strand's website - HERE.