Clare Carswell MA(RCA), is a UK artist working mainly with performance and drawing, but also with video and installation to make works for the gallery or the public space. She has performed in a chateau, a cathedral, in a bathroom, at a birthday party and in the street.
Clare makes art that opens to reveal hidden impulses, the binds of relationship, the invented experience and embraces feminist strategies. She works with whatever medium is going to do the job for her and often works by theme or in series.
Clare's works are conceptual and migrate between the planned and the spontaneous. Her performance persona, MeWoman, uses song or the spoken word as well as strategies of play, comedy and improvisation in works that are open to situation and moment. Rooted in a fine art sensibility they use object, gesture and the drawn mark to make works that are often interactive and engage with audience to invoke personal or shared cultural memories and to propose alternative ways of sharing our stories and our imaginings and of reinventing them.
In the current REALLY TRULY MADLY series Clare is examining the effort, and comedy, of maintaining an ageing body and the technological aids that are now on offer which may mean she never needs have a bad hair day ever again, and ask whether it matters if she does.
The ongoing ART PLOT series, combines gardening with drawing to confront the ongoing challenge of making a living as an artist. It gives visibility to the planting, growing, and new business savvy that the artist finds she needs to learn in order to monetise parts of her art practice and re-home herself in mid life.
Clare was born in London and now lives and works close to London and Oxford. She curates the work of other artists through AYYO Contemporary, a gallery and project space at her studio near Oxford www.ayyo-art.com She runs a residency programme there, inviting applications from UK and international artists for short self directed residencies, reflective and research time in the Cotswold countryside www.artpitch.org
In 2018 she will launch a project, ELIZABETH FIRST, a forum for conversation between women artists of all ages that seeks to offer a space for networking, learning and skill sharing, and to increase visibility for women artists, especially for those outside London. |