“I have a habit of talking around the subject… which kind of fits. Often I think you can impart a lot more by pointing at the things you are looking and thinking about, as well as through storytelling, rather than deconstructing the work for the viewer in a prosaic way. It, hopefully, encourages more of an open conversation with those who might look at it. Perhaps the work is activated by this dialogue, perhaps that dialogue is actually the work. The paintings themselves are often confident but inconclusive, frequently featuring barely drawn in images, left with open spaces and room to breathe or, on the other hand (and the other hand is often offered simultaneously), crossed out, painted over and half obscured.”
Claire Dorsett’s work takes inspiration from notes and casual, seemingly insignificant things. They are thoughts as things, offered up and aired out to see what others might see and think, and what the works might elicit or prompt, in an attempt to openly communicate with a viewer.
An obsession with objects and sculpture often informs the physical nature of the work, as well as the imagery. These featured ‘things’ often act as conduits or embodiments of larger ideas in an often indirect way. Small things can become big and big things small, both in terms of actual size and size of feeling; a continual play with scale in relation to the human body.
Ideas come from day-to-day drawing and haphazard visual records that she attempts to be objective with, whilst also trying to retain the impulse or reaction that propelled her to want to collect or harness that thought or feeling in the first place. There’s an energy in beginnings that Dorsett wants to try and capture in the work to help keep it fresh, open and exciting.
Claire Dorsett (born 1985, UK) graduated from her BA (Hons) in Fine Art Painting at The University of Brighton in 2007 and from MFA Painting at The Slade School of Fine Art in 2010. She has exhibited both nationally and internationally. She lives and works in Merseyside and Manchester.
