CLARE THATCHER
Location:
Bristol, UK
ARTIST BIO
Clare Thatcher is a visual artist who lives and works in Bristol, UK. She has been a co-founder of CLaSH Art Space since 2015, a group of 6 artist-led working studios where she has her studio. Clare graduated from Bath Spa University with a master's Degree in Fine Art in 2015 and from the University of the West of England with a first-class honours degree in Drawing and Applied arts in 2014. She has exhibited nationally & internationally. Exhibitions include the John Moores Painting Prize, 2018; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool (group); Jackson's Open Painting Prize, 2019 & 2023, London (group) Academician Candidate Exhibition, 2019 & 2023, Royal West of England Academy, Bristol (group) Beep Painting Prize Biennial, 2020 & 2022, Elysium Gallery, Swansea (group) Prize winner London Sunny Art Prize, 2022, Sunny Art Centre, London (group) Prize winner Bath Open art prize 2023 Bath (group) Contemporary Six Annual Open Call, 2023, Contemporary Six Gallery, Manchester UK, (group) Arcadia for all? Rethinking Landscape Painting Now, 2023, The Stanley & Audrey Burton Gallery, University of Leeds, (group) Royal Academy of Arts summer show 2023, Royal Academy of Arts, London (group) Essence of Place, 2023, That Art Gallery, Bristol, UK (solo). Clare's work is held in private collections in the UK, USA and Switzerland. She currently has 2 paintings in a Soho Homes collection, Dwellings, London, curated by Rise Art. In 2023, Dohing Art Gallery, Seoul, Korea, acquired a painting from her Quiet Space (Alaska) series 2019-21 for their collection for the One Nine Elms City Tower project in London.
ARTIST STATEMENT
Painting and drawing are at the heart of my practice. I make work deeply connected to a sense of place in response to particular landscape features that have had a profound effect on me, mostly in tidal and coastal areas. The locations I choose and the focus of my attention are highly selective and personal, one that evokes a very strong, emotional, felt response. Central to my practice is the use of pure colour, which I make from pigment. I select a limited palette, and through the impact of both colour and surface, I aim to capture the mood and sensation of an ever-changing landscape. My work has always been about places, specifically visited places, and so particularly understood by drawing directly. I use drawing and painting as a visual language to express my inner thoughts and emotions. In these paintings, my aim is to encapsulate global, climate, and environmental issues, with a sense of vulnerability and loneliness at the time of their making. Exploring the power of the ocean, the fragility of our natural world, the British landscape, and our coast.
