Claire Cansick

Artist Statement 

‘My work is associated with a romantic pragmatism, embracing the shadow side, themes of self and non self, and a deep concern for the state of the natural world. I predominantly use oil to interpret landscapes and seascapes with a tight four colour palette, which shifts slowly over time. Seascapes, at the moment, are my main subject; they utilise thin layers of oil, diluted with mediums, to create undulating, sensuous movement, imitating the complex facets of waves, meditative, repetitive, yet never the same. A dark depth in the foreground gives way to reflected light from brooding skies, ominous and tinged with violet, as English skies often are at dawn. These waves act as conduits for more complex ideas; skeletal forms tumble within womb like arcs, their stories unheard; faces and eyes emerge in the lustrous glossy surface; distant ships drift silently on the horizon almost merging with the sky. Myth laden shadows, tell tales of figures beyond the frame, and beyond reality. High horizons plunge into dark foregrounds, swirling and blurred, the focus in the distance, they are foreboding and threaten to engulf. Torn between light and dark, joy and fear, inner and outer worlds, they dance and swell, becoming like rock, land, grass or cloud.   Landscapes have left innocuous romanticism behind and are now concerned with core values relating to the natural world in crisis. I am drawn to extreme weather events, natural phenomenon, in paintings which veer from horrific to profoundly beautiful, belittling the viewer in their wake and power. Nature cannot be ignored, nor will fail, and I work to amplify her voice.’