Claire Seidl uses her “painter’s eye” to direct the shooting, developing and printing of her photographs. Elements intrinsic to painting, like gestural line, multiple layered space, and ambiguous form and content, are all present. While easy to view as abstractions, her photographs are deeply rooted in the real world; they are filled with specifics of place and people and natural phenomena – and their ephemeral nature.
Claire Seidl
”My approach to realism is subsumed by the camera itself, which reveals what we can’t see - in the dark, for example - or what is lost when we shift our gaze. Many of my photographs are taken at night when our ability to see clearly is limited but the open gaze of the camera dispassionately records everything. I use long exposures which capture the small, even insignificant or sporadic movements of a person, a shaft of light, or slow-moving waves on a lake, revealing a visible record of time passing, of memory enhanced. I am very interested in how we see (or don’t see) what is right in front of us. The camera gathers more visual information, especially over time or in the dark, than our eyes can. It can hold multiple layers of space and reflections in focus while we can only perceive one at a time. My photographs show more than the unassisted eye can see. They are not manipulated in the darkroom.
Claire Seidl
All of Seidl’s photographs suggest a human presence, with or without figures in them. People – often family members – both inhabit and escape from the frame of the camera. The viewer can also enter this space, filling an absence as if crossing a threshold. In long exposures, the figures become ghostlike as their movements are recorded over time, while the static elements seem fixed in time.
Manneken Press published two photogravures, made from the artist’s original 35mm camera negatives, in 2025. They are hand-printed from etched copper photogravure plates in editions of 15 on Fabriano Rosaspina paper.
About the Artist
Claire Seidl has been an abstract painter for forty years and a photographer for twenty. A native of Connecticut, she moved to New York City after receiving her BFA from the College of Visual and Performing Arts at Syracuse University. She received her MFA in Painting from Hunter College, City University of New York, and later studyied photography at the International Center for Photography. Seidl has taught art at Hunter College and Hofstra University. She lives and works in New York City and in Rangeley, Maine.
Seidl exhibits nationally and internationally, has had 40 solo shows, and participated in over 100 group shows. Museum and University venues include the Aldrich Museum, Noyes Museum, McNay Art Museum, South Bend Museum, The Baker Museum, Ewing Gallery at University of Tennessee, Murray State University, KY, Haverford College, DePauw University, Novosibirsk State Art Museum, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Russian Museum of Photography, Portland Museum of Art, Ogunquit Museum, Zillman Art Museum at University of Maine, Bates College Museum of Art, University of New England, Center for Maine Contemporary Art, Bates College Museum of Art, Mattatuck Museum, Maine Museum of Photographic Arts, Art in Embassies US Dept. of State
Seidl is a member of American Abstract Artists.
