©Alma Haser, Coralie, from Four Legs

©Alma Haser, Dean, from Four Legs

This week we are featuring Still Life projects, and on Friday we finish with a 4-part Exhibition on Still Lifes!

Alma Haser’s work has always defied easy definition. Her projects possess a distinctly tactile quality, oscillating somewhere between sculpture, photography, and installation. Rather than treating photography as a purely two-dimensional medium, Haser transforms photographs into physical objects, blurring the boundaries between image and material.

As part of our still life week, we discussed two of her projects. In Four Legs, Haser constructed a series of small ceramic chairs in a variety of styles and colors before photographing them against an array of cut, patterned, folded, and otherwise manipulated backdrops. The resulting images celebrate form, texture, color, and composition while emphasizing the handmade nature of both the objects and their environments.

Her more recent project, Tired Warrior Defeated in Love, may not fit neatly within the traditional category of still life, yet it shares many of the genre’s essential qualities. The work is created through a multi-step process in which Haser first makes a series of portrait photographs, prints them, and then re-photographs the subjects interacting with those printed images. In this process, the photograph itself becomes a physical object—a still life subject to be arranged, manipulated, and photographed once again.

A conversation with the artist follows.

©Alma Haser, Clarissa, from Four Legs

Born in Germany, Alma Haser is currently based in South East England. Known for her complex and meticulously constructed photographs, her work expands the dimensions of traditional photography.

Haser uses analogue techniques, such as inventive paper-folding, collage and mixed media to create layers of intrigue around her subjects; manipulating her photographs into bewildering paper sculptures and blurring the distinctions between two-dimensional and three-dimensional imagery. The work often makes us question our sense of what is real, seeking to expose the unreal, creating images that make us question what we are seeing.

Haser’s work has been published and exhibited worldwide. In addition to receiving awards such as the Magenta Foundation’s Bright Spark Award, the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery, and the PDN Photo Annual Award.

Instagram: @almahaser

©Alma Haser, Ambrose, from Four Legs

Four Legs

‘Why do I keep making miniature chairs?’ is the question I asked myself after one of my weekly ceramic classes, which have become a necessity to keep me sane and functional throughout my busy work and family life. I have always been very tactile with the creation of my work, so it definitely felt like an obvious progression to work with clay. The urge to create miniature chairs, or miniatures in general, can be attributed to a few factors, including feelings of control, escapism, and a sense of creativity. ‘Four Legs’ was born from feeling overwhelmed with the constant juggle of the every day.

The miniatures were then brought back to my studio, where I created small boxed scenes for them to inhabit. From the calm of making the ceramic chairs to my chaotic visual mind. Rephotographing, cutting, pasting and playing with painted layers to create a small world for each chair to live in.

©Alma Haser, Erica, from Four Legs

While your imagery over the years might not be considered still life in the strictest sense, your work always has the staged and constructed elements of still life.  Can you speak generally about your process and the tactile quality present in all your work?

Yes I suppose so. I like to use photography as a tool, but will often print out my images, then cut, weave, layer the prints to create an image that slightly confuses people. I like the idea that people have to look twice to understand how it was constructed but also to understand what is real and what parts are printed material. Many people assume I use photoshop or digital techniques such as Ai, but for me that is not my preferred method of working and I can often find it harder to create work that way. I like to take time, make mistakes and work with my hands and scalpels

©Alma Haser, Felicity, from Four Chairs

Your recent series on motherhood includes elements of portraiture, still life, and collage.  When you make these images, do you have a pre-conceived notion of what the final image will look like or is the process collaborative and unpredictable? (much like motherhood!)

When I started this project back in 2022 I thought I had a clear idea of what I wanted to create, a new raw way of showing motherhood. I had images of skin, baby and cut outs revealing more skin. At the time, my second child was one, so was going through the early stages of motherhood again, and was focused more on the claustrophobia mixed with love and trying to capture that feeling. The first stages on each shoot are simple, but once I printed the images onto fabric and brought them back to the mother and child, I had the challenge of trying to realise my image and the layers I wanted to show.

Sometimes it was obvious and I often print out images and cut them out and play in my sketch book beforehand but sometimes I also like to be a bit more spontaneous and see how the fabric print feels when I go back to the mothers and children. Seeing how they react to the prints and their changed environment will often affect the outcome. Also working with kids can be so unpredictable (much like motherhood) so I definitely have to leave my concept of what the image should look like at the door and go with the flow.

©Alma Haser, Malcolm, from Four Legs

Your series “Four Legs” includes images which are a bit more akin to traditional still life. Ironically, this project started from your desire to make ceramics.  How did your ceramic creations make their way into your photographs?

I was given a six-week ceramics course by my partner, and quickly became devoted to it, spending an entire day each week with my hands deep in clay. My work has always been rooted in tactile processes, so the transition felt instinctive. What I didn’t expect was the sense of calm and freedom the practice would bring me.

The impulse to create miniature chairs, and miniatures more broadly, can be linked to ideas of control, escapism, and imaginative play. Four Legs emerged from that feeling of being overwhelmed by the constant balancing act of everyday life.

But I wanted to bring my ceramic chairs to life. So in the studio, I constructed boxed scenes around them. The calm, meditative act of making the ceramics gave way to my more chaotic visual language: rephotographing, cutting, layering, painting, and assembling small worlds for each chair to inhabit.

©Alma Haser, Sebastian, from Four Legs

Do you have any upcoming exhibitions or publications you would like to share?

I am excited to show ‘Tired, Warrior, Devoted, In Love’ and ‘Four Legs’ along with my series on German idioms ‘Everything has an end only a sausage has two’ at Hove Museum of Creativity in October courtesy of Photoworks and Themes and Hudson’s Mini Photographers Book.

Also my motherhood questionnaire is still open so people are more than welcome to answer the questions and have their say and input into the project. I take at least one sentence out of each questionnaire to be part of the ongoing text work attached to the project. https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfBXYKLmoxm5LM9lX7nr367jlaSqz9gU6vUARAxReHg2aOrVg/viewform

©Alma Haser, Weber, from Four Legs

Four Legs Install at Candela Gallery

Tired, Warrior, Defeated, In Love 

I became a mother in 2018, when my work shifted. Time became limited, fragmented and fleeting. In 2022, I started to photograph mothers close to me. Photographing the connection between mother and child, the hidden tensions and thoughts that are not spoken aloud. I printed the pictures onto fabric and would bring them the next time we met. The layers represent the complexities of motherhood, taking an intimate look at the experiences of a group of mothers over time. Through the work, skin is stretched and pulled, nipples twisted, bodies bruised and bulging. Time is layered and relayered, patchworked together. The project deconstructs the misrepresentations of motherhood with a tender and playful eye. It’s hard to tell where mother ends and child begins. The images explore claustrophobia and euphoria in one breath, revealing the daily chaos, the never ending mess, the mental load and the moments of bliss.

The images offer a stark contrast to the idyllic family life we are sold. The experience of motherhood is presented as joyous, raw and messy, a journey of self sacrifice and rebirth.

During this project, I wanted to open up a conversation about motherhood and the elements that can be hard to express without the fear of judgement. I created an anonymous questionnaire – and selected sentences from each mothers answers to create a poem, the confessions of mothers.

©Alma Haser, Celine, from Tired Warrior Defeated in Love

©Alma Haser, Chloe, from Tired Warrior Defeated in Love

©Alma Haser, Liz, from Tired Warrior Defeated in Love

©Alma Haser, Nicola 1, from Tired Warrior Defeated in Love

©Alma Haser, Nicola 2, from Tired Warrior Defeated in Love

©Alma Haser, Nicola 3, from Tired Warrior Defeated in Love

©Alma Haser, Sallie, from Tired Warrior Defeated in Love

©Alma Haser, Sarah, from Tired Warrior Defeated in Love

©Alma Haser, Tired Warrior Defeated in Love Install at Candela Gallery