Los Angeles-based photographer Heather Cleary’s work Thresholds (2025) transforms a carefully constructed scene into something simultaneously cinematic, uncanny, and intimate. Created during a bout of insomnia in which the artist found herself watching nature documentaries for comfort, the work emerged from Cleary’s fascination with the conventional yet moving aerial “migration of the herd” shot that is often deployed in such films. Here, she reimagines the mise-en-scène with clay figures of early humans.

Cleary’s oeuvre is informed by a keen interest in film and set design, the ways different materials register photographically, and stripped-down explorations of the conventions of visual media. Rather than working in series, each of the artist’s works is a wholly individual encounter and is often prompted by a vision or observation.

Though Cleary doesn’t adhere to any predetermined way of working, she frequently creates intricate clay models expressly for the purpose of photographing them within constructed or found scenes. The result is often as disorienting as it is entrancing. One’s sense of scale is thrown into question and, often, there is just enough of a thread of narrative—some representational anchor points amid the abyss—to spark interest in what is unfolding. In this work—as humorous and tender as it is transportive—the negative space, sense of scale, and vantage point are as much a part of the content as the subject matter itself.