‘In Claire Paterson’s work, men and women engage in deeply personal ceremonies, the exact meaning of which is a mystery. In temple-like spaces or in ordinary rooms cluttered with carefully chosen talismanic objects, the subjects give themselves over to startling activities suggesting symbolic death and transfigurations.

What makes Paterson’s art works so fascinating is that the activities she depicts do not reference conventional spiritual traditions. She meets the mystery head on, as do her collaborators, who appear to be in trances or altered states of consciousness.

Paterson is concerned with what Rudolf Otto (1869-1937) described as a direct experience with numen (divine power), a mystery both terrifying and fascinating.’