Crow Burial II (Sidewinder)

analog C-Print, proof b4 printing, based on a Polaroid, hand-printed by the artist on Fuji Crystal Archive Paper, signed in front, not mounted.

What exactly is a proof before printing?
The proofs are part of the printing process. They are usually the few last color trials before printing the edition. They are usually not perfectly color corrected yet. Sometimes a proof might be close in color but we still have to re-print to bring everything together. Proofs are by definition imperfect and part of the natural evolution of a print. Sometimes there is no white border or a kink. A proof is a proof of one step on the way to making a print edition.They are by definition, imperfect.

Stefanie Schneider's scintillating situations take place in the American West. Situated on the verge of an elusive super-reality, her photographic sequences provide the ambience for loosely woven story lines and a cast of phantasmic characters.

Schneider works with the chemical mutations of expired polaroid film stock. Chemical explosions of color spreading across the surfaces undermine the photograph's commitment to reality and induce her characters into trance-like dream scapes. Like flickering sequences of old road movies Schneider's images seem to evaporate before conclusions can be made - their ephemeral reality manifesting in subtle gestures and mysterious motives. Schneider's images refuse to succumb to reality, they keep alive the confusions of dream, desire, fact, and fiction.

Stefanie Schneider received her MFA in Communication Design at the Folkwang Schule Essen, Germany. Her work has been shown at the Museum for Photography, Braunschweig, Museum für Kommunikation, Berlin, the Institut für Neue Medien, Frankfurt, the Nassauischer Kunstverein, Wiesbaden, Kunstverein Bielefeld, Museum für Moderne Kunst Passau, Les Rencontres d'Arles, Foto -Triennale Esslingen, Bombay Beach Biennale.