Claire invites you to escape into a world of colour shape and line. Her paintings begin on meandering walks, during which she observes the world around her, capturing snapshots on her phone of things that catch her eye; the colours of the changing landscape, the shadows cast on buildings, and arrangements formed by dappled light are just a few examples.
Her most recent body of work has grown from her fascination with patterns she has found on the ground formed by fallen leaf litter. She works primarily from photographs of her chance encounters with these transient formations, at first creating many expressive and fluid drawings of lines and shapes which she then projects with an old-school OHP to form the basis of her paintings.
Her process of painting is meditative and controlled. Using flat matt blocks of bold and bright colours to slowly fill in her pre-drawn lines she transcends into a place of calm, finding solace through the practice of making.
Her paintings ask you to recognise the beauty in the fragility of nature, to take a moment to slow down and observe the journey of tangled lines and movement of floating shapes - to notice how your eyes dance across the surface and how the colours can take you places. Some of her favourite things are: white tea, comfy sweatshirts, her son’s laugh.
Bio
Claire Oliver is currently based in Leeds. UK. Where she works from a home studio on the top floor of her Victorian Terraced home. She graduated with a Degree in Graphic Design in 2003 and returned to University to complete an MA in Visual Art in 2008. She has exhibited work in the UK and Europe and sold work internationally.
Instagram @claire_oliver_art