ARTISTS TALKING

# 2 [2 October 2009]

As your work has developed, have you found yourself more studio based than spending time physically out in the landscape?

It depends. When a project idea emerges I travel on foot or by public transport, to research, it's the travelling experience which interests me. It’s usually pretty much on a shoestring, and as was the case recently in Berlin I travelled by bicycle as well. I also loved walking through the city for hours at a time, and absorbing it all. I take a lot of photographs on the way - they are often just reference for a colour or shape but I also use my visual memory for ideas. I then have a long phase in the studio where I use this material. I still go out into the landscape here, otherwise I'd feel a bit trapped in the studio.

My connection with Berlin goes quite far back. A friend who I worked with in the environmental field had lived there before the wall came down, and was able to tell me quite a lot about it. He moved back there and when I visited I found that the urban space began to inspire a body of work. To be presenting rural Wales as an artist in a European city is a nice development. It's a bit of synchronicity as it reflects my own passion regarding cultural links in the arts and what it's possible to do with a self motivated project.

Maybe around 15 canvases of a metre square, there's a couple that I've started here and the piles of small paintings you can see will be included, and some photographs.The spaces are quite large but the work needs a lot of space around it, so I am planning for that.

The urban material has inspired an ongoing series separately to the large works.They are small black and white images of Berlin. Because there is so much visual movement in a city you tend to want to record as much as possible - it 's a kind of transitional narrative of the urban landscape. I'm enjoying those as I paint them while thinking about the large canvases.

I did during my degree and I began painting large landscapes in Wales a few years ago with a view to creating a kind of wide screen effect with the paintings focused on roads. I was living in a remote landscape at the time so the impact of the spaces and journeys through the mountains became my focus -. I think I achieved that feeling with my previous project about Czech and Welsh landscapes, 'Memory of Snow'.  

# 1 [1 October 2009]

Writer and editor Jane MacNamee came to visit me in my studio during September. We had the following interview for local and wider publicity about the project..

Hi Clare, are you usually based here as an artist?

I'm based here at the moment - this space is convenient for the project. I'm not very static with studios and tend to use spaces as I find them for projects. A lot of my previous work has been informed by moving around, and by the landscape in mid- Wales.

You were based in Berlin for a while?

I was in a shared studio in Berlin for 3 months last year, in an old tax office on the eastern edge of the city which I was able to cycle to. I was invited to join a collective of international painters, who I am still in contact with. It helps to know that I'm not working on my own. The group pool their resources to be able to exhibit in Berlin and the gallery space is permanent, so it's a good venue to be in contact with.

Can you tell me a bit more about your project 'Memory of Light'?

Yes, it’s based on my travel journal from 2008-9 when I was walking and cycling in Berlin and travelling back to Wales overland. I received an award from the Arts Council of Wales to develop a body of work which stems from the photographs I took. Its the next sequence after 'Memory of Snow' which was a series of Czech landscapes and Wales during winter - I have a structure going on using these titles and I'm working within that.

So it's a travel journal in photographs? Is there writing as well?

It's mainly photographs but I do have an ongoing written journal which I add to when I'm not busy with a painting project.

Your work is usually focused on landscape. How has this developed over the years?

I made a conscious decision to paint  and to improve on it as I was trying to attempt a number of artforms when I graduated, mainly with regard to making a living. I'm interested in longer projects now which are more focused as groups of works, and cohesive in subject. I'm hoping to work more with the photography side of things now as it is a strong influence in my work and I'd like to bring it to the fore and experiment with it.

My exhibition context is moving into public art centre space which has lead to exhibition opportunities here in Wales and a now a public/government building in Europe....