Clara Adolphs uses anonymous and discarded photographs of markets, deceased heirlooms, and online stores as the subject of her paintings. The snapshots depict a cozy familiarity: moments of leisure in nature, small social gatherings, or scenes of solitude. By registering a lost moment, the found photographs are recreated as paintings. The moments now endure forever; the memory continues with infinite possibilities.

Adolphs is attracted to photographs that show a particular light and atmosphere. Intense shadows are representative of sunset and the end of the day. Adolphs believes they intensify the atmosphere and infuse his subjects with a gentle melancholy. They reflect a particular time in analog photography: the 1940s to 1960s when cameras represented light differently and could not store detailed information. Adolphs seek these indeterminate spaces in the grain of the photographs, intrigued by the lack of visual clarity, which, like memories, can be filled in.

In the studio, Adolphs uses muted color tones, visible strokes, wet and dry brushstrokes, but mostly palette knives, which make quick gestural marks to depict the fleetingness of memories.

Some of his works count with a “couple”, but either way she intends them to be seen as a group that reveals her world—a disparate world, inspired by unconnected people and places. Clara Adolphs unites them through her unreal landscape.

As in the photographic nature of repeating and reproducing, she remakes an original image in her studio. In this way, she attempts to recreate the essence that captured the shot at a specific moment and time.