10 Questions with Robert Claus

Al-Tiba9 Art Magazine ISSUE18 | Featured Artist

An emerging photographer with a background in translation and music, Robert Claus has been exploring drawing, composition, and theatre since an early age. Born in Germany, he relocated to the San Francisco Bay Area after graduating from the University of London. Attending a major retrospective of David Hockney in 2014 inspired him to return to photography. A self-taught artist, he has since studied under the late Gina Milicia and taken workshops and classes from Ed Kashi, Neal Menschel, and Oleg Savunov (at Stanford), as well as Joel Grimes (remote), among others. Robert Claus tends to draw on still life for his subjects, but has also explored both urban and rural landscapes, as well as portraiture. He has produced several book-length curated projects that range from theatre work to abstract still-life compositions and travel. Now showing his work through open calls, he is actively seeking opportunities to connect with a wider audience, and representation by a gallery.

clausphoto.art

ARTIST STATEMENT

There are many ways to tell a story through images—one of them is to transform objects into abstractions. In these polyptychs, Robert Claus has remoulded and layered his subjects in order to translate them into something entirely different. Initially, Claus photographed old baking sheets using a macro lens and created patterned and textured compositions. He then began to experiment with circular rather than rectangular frames, and composed a series of nine, entirely context-free subjects. The artist then decided to shift away from objective reality yet further and put together a set of three triptychs, in which he combined collages of square and circular details, all derived from the original baking sheet photos. To go one step further, Claus combined all three into a single enneaptych, arranged in a strict geometrical and mathematical order. The resulting collage completes the arc away from verisimilitude to abstraction, from photographic practice to graphic design.

***Three Triptychs #5***, Photographic Montage, 30x30 in, 2025 © Robert Claus

AL-TIBA9 ART MAGAZINE ISSUE18

COMING SOON | PRINT MAGAZINE AVAILABLE FROM MAY 15th, 2025.

INTERVIEW

Your background in translation and music is quite unique for a visual artist. How have these disciplines influenced your approach to photography and composition?

An unknown language is something mysterious; until we begin to decipher it, it is first experienced as a strange kind of music. All languages have their own musicality, of course; they rely on rhythm, timbre, and, to a certain extent, on melody, too. They also depend on structure; the syntax of a sentence must be correct, or the words within it won't make much sense. Poets can play around with that, but only because they understand the proper order required—that is always their starting point and underlying frame of reference. Music works the same way: I could string a bunch of notes along in a row, but unless I know what makes music work the way it does—I'm just going to make a terrible, non-sensical noise.
When I learned to appreciate those structures hidden within languages and music, I discovered that there is a certain natural order to things that people find pleasing—for the most part, anyway: some colours go well together, strong contrasts capture the eye, and so forth. Over time, I came to understand these patterns a little better, and to build them into my compositions. Very clumsily at first, of course, but by figuring out which techniques worked and which didn't, I was able to learn this weird language of photography. So now, when I curate and sequence images for a project, for example, I think along those lines: the photographs are words in sentences and chapters, but they are also notes in a melody. They must flow in a way that feels natural and somehow makes sense. So I kind of translate a pile of photos into a larger composition, and when I go out to shoot, it's almost never to go and capture one particular shot—I'm usually on the lookout for subjects and scenes that could become part of a larger story, like scenes of a play, or songs on an album. Context is critical here, and I learned the vital importance of that as a translator!

***Cosmogony #2***, Photographic Montage, 32x16 in, 2024 © Robert Claus

As you mention in your biography, you are a self-taught artist. What drew you to photography? And how did you develop into the artist you are today?

As a little boy, I loved to draw; thinking back to that time now, it strikes me as curious that I was drawing things like knights in battles, Vikings charging ashore, or pirates attacking another ship—the gorier, the better! Now, I realize I was trying to tell stories through pictures, much as I am trying to do today with my camera, but at the time, of course, I was too caught up in the pictures (and certainly too young) to know any better.
So, in a sense, I've come full circle, but it took me a long, long time, with many detours via music, theatre, and poetry.They all took their measure of time to grow through, but with each little detour, I learned something new that ultimately came to inform my photographic practice today—and I certainly hope that this journey full of unexpected twists and turns will continue! I enjoy the work I produce today, but I don't want to wake up a few years from today and realize that I'm still shooting and working the same way—that would be a wasted journey.
Along the way, I've been very lucky to have had the support of the late and much-missed Gina Milicia, who very kindly mentored me and a slew of other photography hopefuls for a few short years. She taught me all the techniques I used at a youth theatre group (more on that later) and gave me the confidence to go and volunteer there as a photographer in the first place. There were other people like Ed Kashi, Oleg Savunov, and Joe Yablonsky who taught classes either in person or online. Phillip McCordall, a retired, award-winning advertising photographer, was also immensely helpful by teaching me just a fraction of his craft.

You also mention attending David Hockney's retrospective in 2014, which reignited your passion for photography. What resonated with you about his work, and how has it shaped your artistic direction?

It was a major exhibition at the De Young in San Francisco, and I was absolutely blown away by it. It seemed like there was nothing the man couldn't do: From wall-sized paintings produced on iPads—which, at the time, represented a very new technology— to video installations, from watercolours to charcoal drawings, the mastery of craft and technique alone was staggering! But of course, it was all steered by a unique artistic vision, and that's what brought the work to life for me.
There was one set of charcoal drawings in particular that caught my eye. For one thing, they were drawn so well that I mistook them for photographs at first. But the kicker for me was that they all showed the same scene (a path through a clearing in a wood) but at different times of the year and in different weather. Hockney had set himself the task of returning to the same spot over and over again and to portray it over the course of a year, treating that scene like a sitter in different outfits. For some reason, that resonated with me in a way that very few other works had ever done—whether in music, theatre, or visual art.
I was just starting to get back into photography at the time, but I told myself there and then that I would do something similar, but with my camera instead of a pencil. It took a few more years, but I got there in the end: Between 2019 and 2021, I returned to a local reservoir over consecutive fall and winter seasons and photographed it using only my smartphone, and working only in black & white. I cannot begin to tell you how much I learned over those three years and how much that lifted up my photography! So, if you're reading this: Thank you very much, Mr Hockney!

Your work frequently revolves around still life, but you have also explored landscapes and portraiture. What draws you to these different subjects, and how do they complement each other in your practice?

I've long been interested in still life as a photographic genre, probably in no small part because I'm an introvert! When I'm at home, working alone in my little studio (better known around the house as the spare bedroom), I'm perfectly happy. I'll put on some music and just get stuck in it. Still, life is perfect for that—you need to slow down and take your time. You can't rush a good still life; it unfolds over time. An afternoon will pass without me noticing, and at the end of it, I might have one or two images I'm reasonably happy with. I discovered all this during the lockdown, of course, when there reallywasn't much else to do!
And this slow approach continues to inform the other work I do, too. It's like when I shot that reservoir: technically, that was landscape photography, but I saw and experienced the place much more like a giant still life. Truth be told, I'm a really lousy landscape photographer and struggle with the genre, but I also struggle with the idea of genres in general.Where does one end and the other begin? If we're being honest, it's really just for the sake of convenience that we stick these silly labels on things. One person's rock anthem is another one's pop hit!
My portraiture—such as it was—was tied to theatre and was another tremendous learning experience. My wife studied drama at college, I used to moonlight as a theatre technician, and our son followed in our footsteps. When he was in his teens, he joined a local youth theatre group and performed in many shows there over the years. I was the "dad with the camera," so I took headshots, photographed rehearsals, and set up & shot promotional materials such as character portraits for use in marketing.
This taught me many things, most importantly how to plan ahead and perform well under pressure. I had to nail the shots at the time I took them—there was no time for makeovers. Headshots were done during rehearsal, while a kid was not needed on stage. I would have a few minutes—less than five, on average—with each child to try and get the shot. It was stressful but also very rewarding, and my favourite work was doing the marketing editorials. Again, there was never much time, so I would have to plan and rehearse the shoot in advance in our living room, complete with lighting diagrams and test shots using a styrofoam head!

Your recent work transforms everyday objects into abstract compositions. What fascinates you about abstraction, and how do you approach reinterpreting your subjects?

This is a great question! I've always been interested in telling the story of an object through its details, such as textures, materials, surfaces, etc. As an aside, if I'm going to photograph a flower, I'm much more interested in one that has started to wilt than a nice, fresh one because that one doesn't have much of a story to tell. But if I can capture the way the light falls across the wrinkles of shrivelled petals, then I've got drama and story in spades!
However, in terms of abstraction, I find that as human beings, we tend to look at objects and people with certainpreconceived ideas and notions. If I took a picture of an old baking tray, you'd be perfectly right to think ,"what on earth did he do that for?" But if I take a macro lens and only capture a small part of the pitted, eroded surface, then the tray as a whole quite literally disappears, and you wouldn't know what you're looking at. Abstraction offers a way to get at theessence—or an essence—of a thing. And although I could call that image whatever I liked, I prefer to give neutral, objectively descriptive titles, and let the viewer fill in the blanks, especially with these abstract pieces.

Your project with baking sheets evolved through multiple stages, from macro photography to polyptychs and mathematical arrangements. Can you walk us through your creative process for this series?

Over time, I've come to think of a photograph as a stage in a process that doesn't necessarily have to end once the picture's been taken. The moment is irretrievably in the past, but the image—the record of that moment—can continue to evolve. So, this series grew out of an assignment for an evening class on serial photography. We had to come up with an idea, shoot it, curate the images, and present them as a series. So far, so good.
But as I was playing around with sequencing my images—again that connection to music—I got to thinking about why photos never seemed to exist outside of right angles. Why was that? Was there a rule somewhere that said all frames should be squares or rectangles? On balance, that seemed unlikely—but if there was such a rule, then I was suddenly determined to break it! And so I started framing the images in circles instead, and it felt so weirdly liberating! I thought, 'why stop here?', and began to layer round images on top of square ones. That was OK, but I felt like it needed a fairly rigid structure to really work; that was probably the translator or musician within me talking!
So then I looked at the dimensions of the various components and decided to standardize them; I think it was four inches aside for the squares. I wanted the proportions to harmonize with each other, so I gave them simple relationships: The round images would be half that size, with a diameter of two inches. The result was interesting but could still be pushed a little further, so I created two more of these stacked doubles and arranged them all in a row of three. To make the spacing consistent, I set the "stacks" two inches apart, which again echoed the size of the circles. Then I defined the size of the canvas by adding an edge of white space two inches wide around the outside of the stacks. It was a surprisingly simple but effective way to compose a collage! And just as in music, we tend to find relatively straightforward ratios and relationships pleasing; the more complex the math gets, the more discordant the result becomes.

Your work blurs the lines between photography and graphic design. Do you see yourself moving further into mixed media, or does photography remain your primary medium?

Although I am very interested in mixed media, I think that photography will always be at the core of my image-making.It's fun and rewarding to play around with different techniques you can apply to images, but whatever comes out of my camera will likely remain at the core of what I do.
For example, I love creating book projects, especially for family trips. It makes me revisit the places we went through the images and then re-engage with the photos as I try to decide which one would be best for a particular layout. Then, I get to play around with the layout itself, from page orientation to typography. And at the end of this rather lengthy process stands a new construct, the book, which is now much more important as a collective whole than its constituent pictures and words—but those images are still the starting points and will continue to remain so.

You are currently engaging with open calls to expand your audience. What has been your experience navigating the contemporary art world, and what are your goals for securing gallery representation?

Good question. I must admit that so far, it's been more miss than hit! I've had some very positive feedback from reviewers and galleries during portfolio reviews, but so far, there have been no offers beyond one collector, who contacted me via my website and wanted to buy three pieces as NFTs! Needless to say, that went absolutely nowhere. I've had one photograph in a group show at a local museum and, of course, entered a whole slew of open calls, but if there is a secret recipe on how to get represented, I have yet to discover it—if you have any thoughts or suggestions, I would love to hear them!
Since I have a full-time day job, it's hard for me to find the time to visit galleries and build relationships with them, which I understand is how many artists try to gain exposure. I will continue to enter open calls and apply to magazines, but thisapproach has the downside of being expensive and making it difficult to gauge trends and movements in the contemporary art world. I might be producing decent photographs and images, but how do I know if there's actually a market for them? My hope is that by continuing to apply and participate in these opportunities, a gallery will see my work, recognize there is a certain track record behind it, and take a risk on me—but then, I imagine every other emerging artist has the same dream!

Do you have any upcoming projects or artistic directions you're eager to explore? Are there particular themes or techniques you want to delve into next?

Oh, yes, absolutely! I'm currently working on two books: one is a secular book of hours with 24 black and white photographs, all shot together on the same reef at La Jolla, California. This is meant to create a calm, introspective space for people to retreat into and reflect—but also to find a refuge from the sometimes overwhelming realities of day-to-day life.
The other one is called "Behind Stores," and takes a look at the back-end of retail. By shooting the sides and backs of stores and strip malls we don't usually take the time to look at, I discovered a whole separate world, that showed signs of human activity everywhere—trash, for the most part—but no actual human beings, which I found very interesting. So that will be structured in a very theatrical way, starting with Backdrops (facades without doors or windows), then moving onto Sets (walls with doors or windows through which an actor might enter, or exit), and finally, onto Aftermaths of Scenes, which documents the detritus of all that invisible commercial activity.In terms of techniques and themes I would like to explore in future, long-exposure photography is definitely high on my list! I'm a huge fan of Hiroshi Sugimoto's work and how he works with light—there is a ton for me to learn and explore yet! But I also want to move beyond the print simply for the sake of the print and apply other media such as ink and paint to it. I also want to experiment with sun prints, for instance, by photocopying an image onto acetate and then using that to make a sun print. I could then take that print, fix it with water, and use it as the substrate for a mono print.

***Moons of Saturn***, Photographic Montage, 56x8 in, 2025 © Robert Claus

Lastly, where do you see yourself five years from now?

There is a whole world out there to discover and explore! So, in five years' time, I want to see myself moving on to something else I've never tried before, but all the while staying true to my inner voice of translator, musician, and photographer. See you then!

related interviews