ARTIST / CURATOR
ARTIST / CURATOR
ARTIST CURATOR
On this page are images of works in progress, being tested in front of an audience or to camera. They are often made when taking part in professional development workshops. The pictures are usually taken by myself from phone stills or video and are not of great quality. They do act as documentation of an often hidden part of art making : the sharing of new ideas with colleagues, with encouragement by them to experiment, to try new ways of working and to articulate the learning.
Artists need solitude to think and to find out what they want to make but we also need networks of support and witness as we do so. By coming together to make spaces of trust in which to reveal ourselves and our art in the raw - before it is refined for exhibition or presentation, we help one another as we become braver in our art making and we grow our art practice. There is always the possibility too of making new work together and that is often a rich and rewarding experience. I am grateful to all the artist colleagues who have invited me to hear their ideas and to share my own whilst they are tentative. Their observations, reflections and friendship help me to feel my way towards the art I am waiting to make and to do it authentically.
BIDDY BOOST
Experimental drawing with collage made during BIDDY BOOST DAY 4 PRODUCTION November 2022
Drawing and collages made during a BIDDY BOOST production day in November led to the development of drawings in the studio for wearing in WONKY performances in 2023.
INSTANT VORTEX PLUS workshop with Lady Helena Vortex (LHVX) Colchester Arts Centre November 2022
Participation in a new project that creates performance, experimental videos and lens based images that explore the Libidinal and the Liminal, Sex and Desire in dystopian climate changing, post pandemic world. Teaming up cross generational artists – air frying the gap between the 'TikTok' generation and artists 50+ who are seeking to create new, experimental work. Culminating in a Happening – both 'in real life' and digital.
Instant Vortex Plus is part of LHVX's own period of development to upskill and share knowledge of digital lens-work with older artists who want to know more.
Supported by Arts Council England.
Working alongside a group of women artists, dancers & writers from all over the UK I spent time developing a performance to camera, using green screen, leading to the production of UTTY SQUEEZE a new video work
ROOT/HOME/HEART workshop with CREiA Studio London and Lisbon June 2020
Participation in a four day workshop with artists in London and Lisbon via Zoom during the lockdown June 2020 https://creiastudio.tumblr.com/
Working with meditation and drawing to develop an immersive practice.
LOCKDOWN EXPERIMENTAL March - June 2020
Works made during the pandemic lockdown while working at home. Photographing and drawing dying flowers, a preoccupation with ideas around resuscitation with light and rest.
“REFRAMING THE SENTIMENTAL” IN THE ART OF THE MATERNAL Workshops by Desperate Artwives
Reframing the "Sentimental" in the Art of the Maternal were three workshops held at Platform 1 Gallery London between April and June 2018 culminating in an Open Day when works were shared with the public.
The workshops were led by artists Dagmara Bilon, Teresa Albor and Katy Howe, all artists and mothers themselves and guided participating artists on a journey to explore the maternal experience, individually and collectively. The aim was to help artists consider different ways of working and to challenge their current practice, with a focus on exploring and uncovering the power of the “sentimental” in the art of the maternal.
SHOW HOLES 2
“Reframing the “Sentimental” in the Art of the Maternal workshops by Desperate Artwives
Workshop 3 : Removing the Motherhood led by Katy Howe June 2018
Using throwaway sculptural forms and movement to re-inhabit the visceral landscape of our bodies to reveal what’s underneath the mother-hood. I develop the SHOW HOLES idea by using drawn decorative frames to place around sites of pain on my body.
SHOW HOLES 1
“Reframing the “Sentimental” in the Art of the Maternal workshops by Desperate Artwives
Workshop 2 : Note to Self led by Teresa Albor June 2018
Exploring list making and the necessity of them to manage the thousands of small tasks that constitute the lives of families. Working with the body as repository of memory. SHOW HOLES 1 made holes in my trousers to reveal my left knee, a site of pain on my body, and placed on it words I wish I had said to my deceased parents. I then ate raspberries and cream off my arthritic knee in a knowing act of self comforting.
WONKY
“Reframing the “Sentimental” in the Art of the Maternal workshops by Desperate Artwives
Workshop 1 : Choreography of Motherhood led by Dagmara Bilon April 2018
Using movement improvisation, automatic writing and drawing to investigate the history and memory of the maternal body and condense exploration into gesture, still or moving image. The cloud brain appears here in a drawn form for the first time. Earlier the cloud featured in the performance CLOUDLY made for International Women’s Day in March and references the essay “The Cloud : Lecturing on Feminist Research” by Anna Wall (NORA: Nordic journal of women’s studies, vol 2 - 3 1999 pp.97-108)
DIG PERFORMANCE ART WEEKEND curated by Clare Carswell and Sam Hall, hosted by Janey and Francis Carline in Wallingford Oxfordshire in May 2018. A group of eleven artists, some new graduates, some mid-career, camped together in an urban garden and made together that responded to it. DIG contributed to The Last Garden of Mystery and Suspense, the last of a series of art in the garden events that Janey Carline had opened to the community over ten years.
GLOWGIRLGLOW
DIG performance art event Wallingford Oxfordshire Curated by Clare Carswell and Sam Hall May 2018
Moving from the conversational and confessional to the performative. Telling a story by the fireside of loss and sadness and then stripping to reveal my middle aged body in a swimsuit. Asking young colleagues to paint and wrap me in gold and inviting the audience to disco dance with me in an act of self acceptance, celebration of resilience and sheer joy at being alive !
Fireside photographs : Stu Allsopp Glowing selfie by me
LAPER Live Art Performance Group, curated by Veronica Cordova de la Rosa & Peta Lloyd supports performance art practice in Oxford by curating platform events such as ELASTIC in 2017 and SQUASH & STRETCH IN 2018 and through it's monthly meetings in common spaces offers a platform for artists to trial new ideas and to test performative strategies. It asks what performance art can be and leads discussion on ethics and intention. The group encourages experimentation and improvisation and meetings are open to student or established artists and are a good test bed for trying out new works alongside informed and supportive colleagues.
SMILE PINKLY
LAPER curated by Veronica Cordova de la Rosa Common Ground Oxford March 2018
Development of work giving visibility to the experience of having and maintaining ageing teeth.
LUCID
LAPER curated by Veronica Cordova de la Rosa Belvedere Oxford September 2017
A reflective work to camera that re-lived a dream, and a fervent wish, that the artist had as a child of being a sheep. After grazing, a halo of carrot was grated onto the grass and the artist lay with it. The title refers to lucid dreaming, during which the dreamer is aware of dreaming.
Photographs : Clare Carswell
DRINK SODA and DRINK MORE SODA platform events in the Fine Art Department at Oxford Brookes University, curated by Sam Hall offered a space for student and more established artists to test new works in front of an audience.
SMILE 1
DRINK MORE SODA at Oxford Brookes curated by Sam Hall February 2018
Trialling work for a student audience that shares the trials of gum disease and ageing. Using stand up style narrative with faux burlesque dance moves and projected imagery.
Photographs : Clare Carswell
Really Truly Madly
For 'How Do I Look' residency with Grace Grace Grace at Guest Projects London February 2018
Beginning to make work that reveals the trials, and comedy, of living with ageing teeth and gum disease. Giving visibility to the tyranny of beauty regimes for women in middle age, contrasting them with the ease of appearance enhancing apps. Examining the isolation of the subject as the modified digital image renders the real inferior, treacherous and potentially obsolete.
Photographs : Clare Carswell
DRINK SODA at Oxford Brookes curated by Sam Hall November 2017
ReFUEL
A reworking of FUEL, a performance made to camera in the artist's studio in 2010. The artist mourns her deceased Mother as the projected image of her Mother disappears, leaving an outline shape for her to step into.
In ReFUEL the performance, made for a student audience, Clare shares the most profound experience of her mid life, the death of her Mother, stepping into the projection to tenderly interact with the image of herself crying.
This is the first work of her oeuvre that the artist has reprised.
Photographs : Clare Carswell
LADA DIY 14 HELP THE AGED Led by Giovanna Maria Casetta with Helena Waters October 2017
I was a participant artist on the two day LADA DIY HELP THE AGED led by artists Giovanna Maria Casetta with Helena Waters, based at Lancaster Arts and Morecambe Bay. The workshop explored issues facing the older artist and focussed on creating a positive discourse, writing our own rules and creating an infrastructure to meet our expectations of how to negotiate the territory of ageing as artists. In my fifties it felt a timely and invigorating process to go through. As well as emboldening my art making it encouraged me to challenge age related invisibility and negativity and to seek new opportunities for exploration and discussion of ideas around practice, for showing my work and for growing my networks. It was life affirming and art changing !
Photographs : Clare Carswell
