Skylark (Stranger than Paradise) - 1997 44x59cm, Edition 1/5. Analog C-Print, hand-printed by the artist, based on the original Polaroid. Signed on verso with Certificate. Artist Inventory #143.01. Not mounted. Stefanie Schneider was born and raised in Germany but lives and works in Southern California. Exploring the American dream and capturing it with Polaroid instant film. Situated on the verge of an elusive super-reality, her photographic sequences provide the ambiance for loosely woven storylines and a cast of phantasmic characters that reflect a part of the narrator's life told from her perspective. Often about love, communication. sexuality and relationships. 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 dreamscapes. 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...