Claudia Drake's work culls the silent macabre of nineteenth-century visual culture to produce images of haunting pensiveness. Without the need for an exacto knife, she dusts off the banality of these fragments with a keen eye for editing in a digital process. Coupling the playfulness of a Picabia collage with the black humour of the mid-century Italian painter and design impresario Piero Fornasetti, her compositions open themselves to the viewer like a 'wunderkammer' to its inquisitive audience.
In aligning herself with Frederick Sommer's surreal juxtapositions, Drake's art aims to trigger memory like a rorschach test. The viewer must complete the picture. It's only a shame that in engaging with the printed image, she choose to embrace the digital. Something is lost in the tactility of seeing the yellowed paper and the impressed lines of the ancient printing processes. Ernst would have surely have smiled knowing that the form of collage with dadaist details continues.
To see more of Claudia Drake's work on her Your Gallery profile page click here.
Steve Pulimood
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