Catherine Claude is a self-taught naturalist and photographer with a background in dance. Travelling solo to remote regions of the world, her works capture those « haunted » but virgin lands that have never been populated. In Bern, an exhibition of her photographic series reveals a secret natural world.

Swiss artist Catherine Claude has been fascinated by the natural world since childhood. Far from the snowy mountains of her home country, her journeys explore the vegetable and mineral world, collecting visual, tactile and musical sensations. Her images reveal the architecture of plants, exploring the natural history of their habitat.

Catherine Claude's Obô series transport the viewer to the dense mountain forests of the island of São Tomé in the Gulf of Guinea, where daylight struggles to pierce the thick vegetation. Catherine Claude transfigures the thick, humid air and milk-white mists, photographing jungle vines and great trees overlaid with "watercolour" washes. A second series, Suite rapide de sensations variées, conceptualise this artistic approach still further, with kaleidoscopic works forging new architectures and reinvented prespectives. The third series in the exhibition – La Toute Sagace – offer a fresh perspective on the Amazonian rain forest, penetrated by myriad secret waterways.

Catherine Claude's argentic photographs express her intuitive understanding of Nature as a sacred world apart. A unique, quasi-mystical artistic vision.