Claire Burbridge
United Kingdom, London
From her earliest memory, being anything other than an artist was never a consideration for Claire Burbridge. One of twins born to seventies’ London—then raised between Scotland’s rugged west coast and the rolling hills of rural Somerset—Claire’s perspective, her flair, reflects her absorption and understanding of both the urban and the rustic environment.
To describe Claire’s style of work is like trying to define the ocean. Her art has a heartfelt spontaneity. It is at once unpredictable and possessed by minutiae, by intricate detail. Claire has an unmistakable style; a fluency in a visual language that is completely her own.
Encounters with the wilderness—of vast open spaces—inspire Claire’s art. Norway, Oregon and Namibia in particular, where geographical grandeur vies with bold colours, has imprinted on the artist’s mind indelible memories; enthralling scenarios on which Claire has based much of her body of work.
Claire’s work reflects a constant exchange between spontaneous, intuitive decisions on subject and colour, and the underlying order that governs each work’s basic structure. These supporting matrices — based on ideas such as Fibonacci sequencing, the golden section and the geometric proportions found in traditional Islamic design — reflect the recurring patterns found in nature at both the macro and micro levels, and may impart either an explicit fundamental structure to a work, or an implicit governing principle — or both.
Claire’s latest foray is into wallpapers, a journey borne from her desire to work in an infinitely large medium, following her 2017 show with Nancy Toomey. The papers reflect nature encapsulated through observational drawing, the play of light on form; both a mode unfettered and means to bring unframed fine art drawings and verdure into the homes and work spaces of dreamers; those city dwellers whose hearts belong in nature.