Continuing with her site specific work Birmingham based artist and photographer, Faye Claridge, will be exhibiting her ‘Stranger’ series at Three White Walls gallery at The Mailbox from Thursday, 16 April until Tuesday, 26 May called ‘Only A Stranger Can Bring Good Luck, Only A Known Man Can Hang’.

The series depicts Morris dancers in a ‘paradise’, painted and assembled by Claridge who worked with the group over a number of months, learning about their relationships to the past and their motivations for dancing.

The photographs explore relations between living tableaux and photography and challenge photography’s capacity for authenticity, by making portraits which both reveal and obscure, document and create. The style combines Old Master paintings with theatrical staging and is influenced by portraiture of the 18th century.

The men pictured wear the traditional dress of Morris dancers, an ancient art form that is usually associated with pagan fertility rites. Uniquely, these men from Bedford dance in honour of their townsman John Bunyan, the celebrated puritan who discouraged music and dance. They are strictly against women dancing Morris and believe this stance is important to uphold for the sake of tradition.

The ‘hooded’ portraits refer to the need for disguise when men were prosecuted and hung for performing ‘the Devil’s dance’. Usually dismissed as harmless fun, these portraits show Morris dancing as a far stranger social phenomenon that deserves closer attention.

Claridge’s work can also be seen at Danielle Arnaud in London until 3rd May.