L’esprit de l’escalier

Artist Warden, Claire A. Canadian , b. 1988

Date2023

MediumPigment print

DimensionsImage: 36 x 58 in. (91.4 x 147.3 cm)
Paper: 38 x 60 in. (96.5 x 152.4 cm)

Credit LineMuseum purchase with funds provided by the Maxine and Lawrence K. Snider Prize

Object number2024:247

About the ArtistClaire A. Warden is an interdisciplinary artist who makes still and moving images using experimental processes to consider the boundaries of photography. Her projects employ visual abstraction to address the abstract nature of identify formation and convey her experience as a person of color in the United States. In her series, Mimesis (2014-present), Warden paints gestures onto negative film with her own saliva to create abstract black and white pigment prints that are inspired by a personal or sociologic concept associated with racial identity. The chemical reaction in combination with Warden’s markings and expressions results in metallic etchings that resemble microscope slides, evoking considerations of the biological make up an identity in the context of culture at large. “When something is easily identifiable you don’t have to ask what you are looking at,” Warden said. “This echoes the question that is at the heart of Mimesis: ‘what are you?’”

Claire A. Warden received a BFA in Photography and BA in Art History from Arizona State University (2010) and an MFA in Studio Art from School of the Art Institute of Chicago (2024). Her work has been featured in exhibits at Center for Fine Art Photography, Colorado; Griffin Museum of Photography, Massachusetts; Division Gallery, Toronto; and more. Some of Warden’s images are held in the permanent collections of Center for Creative Photography, Arizona; Light Work, New York; Archive 192, Washington D.C.; and others. She is the winner to the 2024 Maxine and Lawrence K. Snider Prize,