Interview with Claire Davenhall
Claire Davenhall was born in 1978 in London, UK and graduated from the oldest established fine art institution in Scotland, Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen with a BA (Hons) in Fine Art Sculpture, she studied at Athens School of Fine Art & North Karelia Polytechnic in Finland. Now living in Perth in Western Australia, she has had 8 solo exhibitions and numerous group exhibitions in Australia, New York, Paris and London. She exhibits along side ‘World Class’ artists in exhibitions such as Sculpture at Scenic World in NSW, Swell Sculpture Festival in QLD, Sculpture by the Sea in WA.
She was awarded Winner of the Shinju Matsuri, Major Prize Winner of the Drift Installation Awards and winner of International Guest Panellist’s Choice Award, at the prestigious Walker Gallery in the UK. Her art practice has been recognized as having innovation and excellence worldwide, receiving an Honorable Mention Award, for participation and distinction at the International Circle Foundation Artist of the Year Awards in 2019.
How would you describe yourself and your artwork?
I’m an international visual artist specialising in sculpture and installation art. Originally born in London, I graduated from the oldest established Fine Art Institution in Scotland, Gray's School of Art in Aberdeen with BA in Fine Art Sculpture, where I had the opportunity to also study at Athens School of Fine Art and North Karelia Polytechnic in Finland.
I went on to study a Post Graduate Certificate in Education at Lancaster University and became a Lecturer in Fine Art and was proudly awarded the ‘Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching & Learning’ and nominated for two National Beacon Awards in Art & Design while teaching at Blackpool and the Fylde College in association with Lancaster University.
Migrating to Western Australia at the end of 2007, I have focused on exhibiting in beautiful locations such as Sculpture by the Sea in Cottesloe, Swell Sculpture Festival in Queensland, Castaways in Rockingham and Brighton Jetty Sculptures in South Australia. I was awarded Winner of the Shinju Matsuri ‘A View to Asia’ in Broome 2016 and Major Prize Winner of the Drift Installation Awards 2017.
In 2018, I represented Western Australia at Sculpture at Scenic World in NSW along with 39 ‘World Class’ artists and received a Creative Development Grant from Department of Culture & the Arts in WA. Then went onto to win the International Guest Panellist’s Choice Award back in the UK, where my art events from Western Australia were recognised by The BIG DRAW as having innovation and excellence in drawing practice worldwide. Recently, I received an Honorable Mention Award, for participation and distinction with her sculpture Lost Soles at Sea, in the international CFA Artist of the Year Awards in 2019.
How do you go about beginning a new piece? Do you have an idea already in mind, or do you start working with materials or sketches to find the departure point?
My work usually starts with a found object, or rather these objects find me, for example a large shipping chain, a piece of old timber from a Jetty or simply a pair of used leather boots when their primary function no longer exists. Being a very tactical person, I like to feel the materials in my hands, looking at all the different facets and play around with different possibilities.
It’s not about giving them a new lease of life, but more about unlocking the stories held within the fragments of the materials, looking for the unusual and thinking deeply: Why the object has called me, what is it trying to tell me, what stories will reveal? Then I go away and research what I have just discovered, place in historical boxes to placed in historical boxes, how old is it, where was it made, how did it arrive in my possession? Once I have an idea and understanding of the materials, I often add other objects, to compliment its narrative, which could be mechanical parts such as gauges or dials as a measure of emotion, state or situation.
Some of these items will be held together with resin mixed with a special blend of colour changing pigment that gives the work ‘a little glimmer of hope’, as the light hits the surface. Other objects will be tied together with hand made ropes or place in historical boxes. I especially like to use travelling boxes as a symbol of our journey through life.
When do you think your most prolific time of day or week is?
It depends on the time of year, if it’s summer I tend to work best in the morning when its a bit cooler, my studio opens out into my garden, so I like to work outdoors . In summer it can reach 40 degrees, so I want to be out there before 10 am…If it’s winter I work at night with the doors shut.
I use the Christmas vacation to plan my year, most of my thinking is done when I’m travelling in the car, Australia is vast, so it can literally takes hours to get anywhere, which gives me hours of great thinking time, with limited distractions, I set out all the exhibitions I plan to make work for and sketch them out, which gives me a plan for the new year and frees up time later in the year when other opportunities present themselves. I tend to work 12 to18 months in advance for larger works, smaller works can be take a couple of hours.
What is a barrier you as an artist overcame? Is there anything that enabled you to develop your work as an artist in your life?
Being an artist is very much a reflective practice, it takes you to place of uncertainty most all of time. There is special kind of creative bravery that artists must have to reach into the depths of the unknown and hover there, not quite knowing what will happen next.
Isolation is also a big barrier, as much as you need the peace and quiet of your studio, you can often get stuck on a piece and you often need to bounce around a few ideas and test out a few ideas. I try to have a few projects on the go at any one time, so if I get stuck, I can just leave it for a few days and work on something else. I take on many collaborative projects outside of my own practice, these are very important as a creative practitioner, because it exposes you a world of other possibles and I’m able to share my skills and experiences to help others on their creative paths.
Did you have an idea of what you wanted to create right from the beginning?
Not always, I might think about a theme for a show for up to 18 months before I start to make anything. Sometimes you have to wait till you find the right found object, other times I have no idea what I am doing, just following my intuition and being open to the creative process, its only until I’m finished I realised what I have just made. I re-work pieces all the time, if I’m not happy with it I will keep changing it or turn it into new work. There is always lots of WIPs (Works in progress) in the studio which are waiting for the right opportunity to be finished and shown.
I think the role of the artist to make sense of the world around them, to look at the world through different eyes and to see it clearly, then put elements of it into sharp focus. Providing an alternative view point, in which we can learn about our cultural history, feel curious, wonder, pose questions and search for answers.
What is the meaning or creative inspiration for your work? We’re curious what the narrative or story is to what you are producing?
History and story telling is what inspires me the most. There nothing better that going to a remote place and finding remnants of its history left behind. The forgotten treasures of objects left by people and then unravelling the stories contained the fragments of its materials, whether it be an old leather shoe, a piece of fishing rope or a rusty old tool. The idea is to reveal the forgotten, the lost and the over looked.
My main body of work explores the migration of people to Australia, to timelessly captures the diverse lost souls which reflects upon the history and heritage that our culture is built on. Though the use of sculpture and installation art, I share their extraordinary stories that bring them into existence, from the ‘Lost Soles – Lost at Sea’ that observes the inhuman amounts of people who have boarded boats in search for better a life, their lost souls, drift in a sea of knowledge in a vessel of hope… To the soulless boot, hooked up like a prize catch, which hangs on a piece of timber from Fremantle’s old Jetty ‘Hook, Line and Sinker’. If you dare to ‘Take a walk in my shoes before you judge me’ read the temperature gauge first, as they come from a place reaching boiling point!
My work makes social comments from the pressures placed on the early settlers and the constraints they endured, to the journey of the migrants refugees and convicts, travelling across the sea, in their search to reach a land of hope and dreams. From the strength of family connections that bonds and ties us together through the journey of life.
My work is thought provoking, intriguing and dares to challenge your own lost soul and the story it yet has to tell. I take my inspiration from poems, found objects, places I have been and things I have seen. It’s unsettling yet beautiful at the same time.
Besides your artworks, are there any other things in life that your voice as an artist may consider vital or valuable? What makes you joyful and creative, in other words?
Yes, beside making art, I also deliver FORM’s Creative Schools Program in Western Australia, as a Creative Practitioner. This is a program that explores the academic, emotional and social value of bringing well-established Artists directly into primary and secondary school environments, through sustained engagement with teachers and young people. The program transforms the learning experience of children by integrating creative ways of teaching the curriculum.
I particularly like to work within the secondary CARE School’s sector (Curriculum and Re-engagement Education) using innovative forms of assessment to develop alternative ways to assess the curriculum, using creative workshop style sessions .This program provides young people with practical and creative ways to demonstrate their learning, cultivate student agency and engage students in deep learning of the Western Australian curriculum.
What I love about the creative schools program, is how it’s different, unique and fun every time I deliver a new session, a new project or go to a new school. It takes you to a place that’s not on the curriculum, yet we cover a lot of the curriculum, because the students are empowered to write it. It places the students at the heart of the creative process and we have to finished, we have produced better creative critical thinkers, who think deeply about the world around them. You can read more about creative schools here https://www.creativeschools.com.au
I also work for a non-for-profit registered charity called Mind the Change Inc. providing high quality arts based workshops, involving people living with dementia and their primary support network. I’m passionate about how the arts can transform the lives of people living with dementia by integrating creative ways to care and connect. The arts can provide so many opportunities for sensory engagement, positive interaction and help to overcome isolation.
Are there any exhibitions or places where people can see these beautiful creations in person soon? Anything on the horizon?
A series of installations captures the voices of early migrants through handwritten messages from people as they embark on the transportation ships and begin their sea bound migration across the Ocean. Leaden hearts or love tokens where given as a final act of remembrance, originally written on copper low demoniacal coins, sanded smooth and hand-engraved they reveal heart felt sentimental messages. These messages float above the gallery space as prayer flags, their words whisper in the wind; “When this you see, remember me,” and bound together with handmade ropes in a vessel of hope.
This imaginative work engages the viewer on multiple levels, you almost become part of the with the use of a sound installation, which aims to slow down the viewers heart rate and breathing to create a body rhythm entrapment experience, using the sound of the ocean waves, signifying the many waves of migrants travelling across the seas. This exhibition invites the viewer to take a closer look and bring together a sense of people and place through art.
