Daniel & Clara: The Lost Estate – Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery

Opening on Saturday 20 January in Norwich Castle’s Colman Project Space, The Lost Estate is a richly evocative photographic series by acclaimed Essex-based artists Daniel & Clara.

Specially commissioned by Norwich Castle, the set of six large-scale photographs explores the relationship between humans and the natural world through imagined narratives taking place in the gardens of a country estate.

Created in response to the Castle’s rich holding of works by the Norwich School of Artists, with a particular focus on the work of John Crome, the series explores the traditions of the English country landscape in art and our fraught and complex relationship with nature.

The images deploy a technique of split-focus photography, which enables two fields of focus within a single image. The effect is to create a distortion in the relationships of scale between foreground and background, creating tension between the human and non-human.

This tension speaks to broader themes and narratives present across Daniel & Clara’s work, such as the split between humans and nature and the climate crisis as a psychological crisis.

The Lost Estate deals with the psychological wounds of the split between humans and their environment through a dream narrative of loss, collapse and crisis.

The Lost Estate is generously supported by the East Anglia Art Fund, and created during a residency at High House Artist Residency.