From Juleah Claar, an American photographer based in Switzerland, we present a collection of photographs created through a technique of film fusion and double exposure.
What emerges from this unusual approach are abstract art pieces that combine worlds and perspectives. “A single frame feels incomplete,” states Claar. The search and hunger for double and hidden meaning, for ambiguity and introspection, is present throughout her whole portfolio. “Film fusion began as a way for me to move beyond what the eye accepts as fixed. Not to escape reality, but to stretch it, layer by layer, until something less obvious starts to emerge. A second exposure isn’t just an addition; it interrupts, overlaps, and reshapes what was there before. It introduces doubt. It introduces memory. It shifts the image from something seen into something felt,” the photographer explains.
Claar invites us to feel first and to analyze second. Or to forgo analysis altogether and to channel our intuition. This way we can find connections between moments, scenes, and each other beyond a single setting or situation. “These works are built from fragments that don’t belong to the same moment, yet find a strange coherence when combined. […] What emerges isn’t a polished illusion but a space where different realities overlap without ever fully settling into one,” Claar adds.
The artist admits that when layered, film “refuses to be exact.” Her photography exhibits, in a similar way, a drift from the beaten path, taking instead a rather chaotic approach to storytelling. Juxtaposition, double exposure, and conceptual elements bring the artist’s layered and cinematic photography closer to a hybrid style, where fine art, nature, and street photography combine into innovative conceptual perspectives.
She says, “Grain, exposure shifts, and imperfections become part of the language rather than flaws to correct. The result feels less constructed and more uncovered, like something that was always there, just not immediately visible.”
The focus falls more often than not on the element of surprise, driven by a soft spot for experimentation and an imperfect, albeit visually aesthetic, synthesis of beauty and nostalgia. Claar’s work denotes open-ended questioning, unfinished business, humility, and an acceptance in the face of reality—that we don’t have all the answers and that even if we did, we would still have much to learn. As she mentions, it is “a reminder that perception is layered and never complete.”
In the end, she poses a fitting question for herself and for the viewers, offering an equally cryptic answer: “What forms sit between presence and absence, clarity and doubt? Not quite real, not quite constructed, just something in between.”
Read our “Roots” issue in full
The new theme, born as usual from what the submitted works held in common, is “ROOTS.” Within its pages, we present the artworks, creativity, and inspiration of 60 visual artists and writers from 21 countries around the world. Their diverse voices come together around a shared exploration of the return to where one belongs, the invisible threads of tradition that shape identity, and the ongoing reconnection with nature, others, and oneself.
We’re a team of writers using our craft to spotlight art in its most honest form. RAWGUE. started as a bi-monthly editorial experiment where each issue’s theme is dictated by the submitted work, thus removing editorial bias from the equation and preserving a more raw approach. We focus on all forms of poetry: written, photographed, painted, drawn, and filmed.
