Claudia Clare

Claudia Clare is a British artist whose ceramic works explore contemporary social issues, such as migration, feminism, and lesbian identity. Clare studied painting at the Camberwell School of Art in the 1980s, before turning to ceramics as an apprentice at Winchcombe Pottery in Gloucestershire in the early 1990s. In 2007 she completed a PhD in Media, Art & Design at the University of Westminster, London. Her experimental, narrative-based ceramic works reflect the impact of major historical events on individuals. Using her artistic practice as a form of activism, she sees her clay pieces ‘both as memorials and as a call for action’. As part of the process of creating some works, she stages performances during which she shatters the pots. She then reassembles the shards, gilding the edges to frame the internal images and emphasise the broken lines. The act of reconstruction is a metaphor for the human experience of trauma and survival which is the theme of much of Clare’s work. In 2011 she co-wrote The Pot Book with ceramic artist Edmund de Waal and in 2016 her second book, Subversive Ceramics, was published by Bloomsbury.

Further Reading

Clare, Claudia. Subversive Ceramics. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016.

De Waal, Edmund, with Claudia Clare. The Pot Book. London: Phaidon Press Limited, 2015.

Scott, Paul. Ceramics and Print. London: A&C Black, 2012..

Selected Collections

Bradford Museums and Art Galleries

Pankhurst Museum, Manchester