CLAIRE MOSSONG
SELF PORTRAIT
FROM THE SERIES WHAT WE LEAVE BEHIND
To find beauty in the messiness, to show yourself, to let go, to love and be loved, to let the light in and all of it. To photograph is to place yourself in front of beauty, a woman, a child, the light hitting a crumbling mountain pass.
ABOUT CLAIRE
Claire is a photographer based in Tauranga, New Zealand.
I’ve always been interested in moments that capture a feeling, that inspire beauty and connection, that create dialogue between the world within and the world without. I am seeking to connect my work to kindness: how do we balance the beauty of the earth with our need to be sustained by it? How do we make good food while respecting the environment? How do we see ourselves? I’m not seeking an answer, but instead the opportunity to keep asking. To look again. I am inspired by people, by the ocean I grew up beside, by kinship, by texture and craftsmanship and, always, by beautiful light. I am inspired, too, by those who have walked before me: Agnes Martin, Patti Smith, Mary Oliver, Irving Penn, Dorothea Lange. I hope to create with people whose minds find a confluence with mine: a meeting place of two rivers; an in-between.