Overwhelmed with anxiety over how to best protect her daughters from the virus – and their minds from the damage of isolation – this series of highly personal images is a study of a mother’s protection, in a time emerging from national lockdown. The use of image layering is recurrent in Claire’s creative practice; negatives are stacked up and new scenes imagined. Using contemporary digital processes is most often a means to a more handcrafted end, and this is sometimes aided by using historic printing techniques. This project is a portrait of a garden and those who have inhabited it. At a time where nature’s powerfully destructive qualities are all too obvious, this handmade green space appears to have offered nature’s other face: an equivalent in terms of healing and protection. At first, the plants seem to wrap around and envelop the children, but they appear less to be trapped and more to be becoming part of this healing space; able to wear their flora like a shield in this darkening world.
