Interview with Claire Davenhall
Claire Davenhall graduated from Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen with a BA(hons) Fine Art Sculpture, studied at Athens School of Fine Art & North Karelia Polytechnic in Finland. She gained a Post-Graduate Certificate in Art Education, lecturing in both Fine Art and Art & Design; she won the Governors Award for Excellence in Teaching & Learning and was nominated for two National Beacon Awards, before migrating to Australia in 2007.
She exhibits her work internationally at Sculpture by the Sea in Western Australia, Swell Sculpture Festival in Queensland, Castaways in Rockingham, Brighton Jetty Sculptures in South Australia, was awarded Winner of the Shinju Matsuri in Broome for her environmental art and Major Prize Winner of the Drift Installation Awards. In 2018, Claire exhibited at Sculpture at Scenic World alongside ‘World Class’ artists and received a Creative Development Grant from DLGSC. She won the International Guest Panellist’s Choice Award at the Walker Gallery in the UK, where her art events from Western Australia were recognised as having innovation & excellence worldwide. In 2021 she exhibited her work as part of the International Indian Ocean Craft Triennial IOTA21. Her work invites the viewer to take a closer look and to bring together a sense of people and place through her sculptures.
Can you tell us about the moment you decided to pursue a career as an artist?
I have wanted to be an artist ever since I can remember, from the of age 5 years old and I was winning awards for my art. My art teachers & lectures from school, college and university have always played such an important part in carving myself a career as an artist. I still think about them often, they were probably the only people in my life that were as passionate about exploring ideas as I was, nothing was too weird, or taboo and they have allowed me to have a rich art education that helped pave the way to a full-filled life as an artist.
What kind of an artist do you ultimately see yourself?
I see myself as a storyteller, my sculptures speak more words that can be spoken, as their stories are held within the fragments of their materials. Piecing those fragments together like a detective, takes intuition, time, vast amounts of research and will eventually bring together an authentic version of the story I want to tell.
What do you want your art to convey to the people who see it? What is the meaning or creative motivation behind your work?
I want my work to invoke an emotional response, where the viewer can reassess the world around them, from a different, more informative viewpoint.
Being an artist is very much a reflective practice, it takes you to a place of uncertainty almost all of the time. There is a 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. The pandemic is a perfect example of that, the floods over east are another…the fires in the west, we never know what's going to be thrown at us.
Making art is how I understand and make sense of the world around me, it makes me question what is the role I play, what difference can I make… what power does a sculpture hold?
Can you tell us about the process you use to create your works? What is your typical workday routine?
My work usually starts with a found object, or rather these objects find me, for example interesting parts of a tree or marine debris collected from the beach, old glass sea floats when their primary function no longer exists. Being a tactile person, I like to feel the materials in my hands, looking at all the different facets and explore different possibilities for them.
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 they reveal. Once I have an idea and understanding of the materials, I often add other objects, to complement its narrative, which could be mechanical parts such as gauges or dials which could symbolise a measure of emotion, state or situation. So, for instance, the use of an old clock hand, suggests that time has run out!
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 the colour changes from green to blue to purple. Other objects will be tied together with handmade ropes or placed in historical boxes, I often use parts of a tree, harvesting the limbs from my garden, symbolising the circle of life.
Where do you find inspiration? What motivates you to create?
I like to go to remote places and sit there for a while. I do most of my thinking and planning while travelling, mostly because there are no other distractions, I can just sit and think. Then I like to discover things, making connections and learn about people, places and events from history. This collection of ideas and materials eventually will produce an artwork, nearly always it will produce a series of sculptures that I can explore and develop back in my studio.
What has been your most outstanding achievement to date?
There has been a few, but one that stays with me is representing Western Australia at Sculpture at Scenic World in NSW. It was magical, exhibiting deep in the heart of a Jurassic rainforest alongside world class artists, the exhibition was only accessible via the steepest railway in the world, they even played the Indiana Jones theme tune as you descended onto the forest floor, there you could explore the sculptures along a board walk through some of the oldest trees in the world.
What are your ultimate career goals?
Career wise, I hope to keep creating new works and educating through my sculptures and surrounding myself with beautiful people doing amazing things!
What are you working on now, and what can we expect from you soon?
I am working on a new body of work that has more of an environmental feel, to learn more about the world and how to better protect it. I recently took up scuba diving to take a look at the underwater world and appreciate the mysteries that lie unseen, beneath the Indian Ocean.
