Alma Haser

Alma Haser (b. 1989, Germany) is known for her complex and meticulously constructed two and three-dimensional works, which combine photography with collage and origami techniques. Using inventive paper-folding techniques, collage and mixed media, Alma expands the boundaries of traditional portrait photography by creating layers of intrigue around her subjects.

Haser’s first UK solo exhibition at The Photographers’ Gallery (8 Jul–14 Aug 2016) comprised of prints, 3D portraits and free standing paper sculptures from her critically acclaimed on-going series Cosmic Surgery, based on an imagined futuristic medical procedure for extreme alteration of facial features. Her most recent projects build on this act of alteration and repetition: Within 15 Minutes (2017-) features individual portraits of identical twins turned into puzzles and combined to make new individuals, no longer recognizable nor identical. Pseudo (2018) - Haser’s latest series of botanical portraits - uses layering as a means of questioning what is real and what is manufactured, through various stages of re-photographing.

Alma Haser completed her Photography degree in 2010 and was shortlisted for the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize in 2012. She has since won several awards including the Magenta Foundation’s Bright Spark Award (2013), First Prize at the PX3 Prix de la Photographie Paris (2015) and Winner of PDN Photo Annual (2016). Her work has been exhibited worldwide, most recently at the Saatchi Gallery in From Selfie to Self-Expression (2017).

Text Courtesy of The Photographers' Gallery, 2018