Clare Burnett
Clare Burnett is a British artist living and working in London. She is President of the Royal British Society of Sculptors.
Clare works predominantly on site or issue specific sculptures and installations, each work a direct response to the history and visual language of the ‘site’. Her sculptures frequently appear in clusters or groups which play with perspective and scale. Integral to these sculptures is her use of colour. In delicate lines or flat planes, she has explored how a colour or material – or rather our perception of it – changes with context, how small variations in tone will bring a line to the fore or settle it into its surroundings.
In her two recent solo exhibitions, Pink at William Benington Gallery, and Improvisations at the School of Design University of Leeds, Clare worked with concepts of play and replacing some but not all of the formal minimalism of her previous works. Found and adapted items are arranged alongside carefully crafted objects, giving a sense of three dimensional collage. Chance and improvisation play a key role in these sculptures, imbuing them with a sense of freedom and fun. However, most recently, she has been searching for visual solutions to themes of alienation, fleeing and extremism, has replaced brighter colours with Black and White and is exploring ways within her visual language and interests to express the current political malaise.
Clare is represented by William Benington Gallery.
Selected Solo Exhibitions
In Hope, The Lookout, Aldeburgh (2018)
Improvisations, School of Design, University Leeds (2016)
Pink, William Bennington Gallery, London (2015)
Folded, Leighton House Museum, London (2012)
Selected Group Exhibitions/ Projects
Sculptural, William Benington Gallery, London (2015)
Spitalfields Public Sculpture Programme, London (2014)
Time Will Tell, Meadow Arts, Croft Castle, Herefordshire (2013)
Colour, Light, Sound, Royal British Society of Sculptors (2013)
Touchscape Sculptures, 2018.
Pink with Pink
Steel, breeze block, plaster, paint
Improvisations
Time At Hogchester Arts
Residency period - January 2019
The residency at Hogchester was such a fresh start to both the year and a new phase in my practice. The space and views, the Hogchester philosophy of treading lightly on the earth and the temperatures in and out of the studio, all allowed for gentle and rhythmic creativity. I was overcome by Chantal’s generosity, clearing her studo in the barn so she, Emily and I could all work in there together. I haven’t worked in a shared studio for a while and had forgotten how enriching it can be. It was such fun to be on the residency with Emily. Together we braved the sea, collected, sieved and cooked the Blue Lyme mud from the beach and tried to work out what Graham Harman was talking about in his book, Object Oriented Ontology.
My intention for the residency was to revisit the improvisational work I had started a couple of years ago and put on hold. I loved returning to the playfulness of adapting, combining and adding to a selection of found materials and discarded objects. I collected from the farm, beach, Bridport market, the scrap yard and the local recycling centres. With these I took a series of photos where the objects became characters interacting differently in each scene. For larger pieces I built bases with concrete mixed with sand and clay from the beach and added pewter elements thanks to Chantal’s instruction.
Emily found this apt quote in the Graham Harman book: “Literal language is always an oversimplification, since it describes things in terms of definite literal properties even though objects are never just bundles of literal properties”
