(Banner portrait by Laëtitia Lavallette)
There’s never a second chance to make a first impression, says conventional wisdom. When introduced to one of Clare AVERY’s paintings, be self-assured, for they are positive, vibrant and sensual, and their confidence will shake your perspectives. Once the formalities are over, an animated discussion may ensue; wherever the conversation should lead, impossible to skirt the subject of colour. You have entered a universe of dreams and reverie drawn from a rich, complex subconscious. The needle of routine is lifted from its habitual groove and the soul soars, delighting in an unrestricted palette. The result is unashamed, joyful and spirited in numerous expressions of oil paint on canvas or board.
NATURE IS A CONSTANT INSPIRATION
Much of the artist’s inspiration comes from nature and her reaction to shades and textures is visceral: ‘As a young English girl starting her artistic career my first love was John CONSTABLE. His appreciation of skies and knowledge of cloud formations, recognised to be scientifically valid today, were stimulating. His paintwork of tactile muddy wet fields, wooden styles and rough barns, and his majestic Salisbury Cathedral, remain with me always.’
Minerals, flora and fauna, the sea and shoreline, rain and ice, the seasons and the passing of time, the cosmos and exploration are recurring themes. However, there is nothing pastoral here. Figuration is minimal as ‘abstraction is my preference. Although I’ve completed figurative œuvres in the past, I felt constrained by the limitations. I need a distillation of visual stimuli and a reference that allows my imagination to roam free.’ Describing AUTUMNAL CASCADES:1 ‘As brief as autumnal hues are, their intensity is invigorating and warming. I use chrome, cadmium and lemon yellow, russets and soft emerald pigments ablaze against a clear cerulean sky.’ At times, we inhabit a calm, safe place: ‘FLORA AND FAUNA:2 looking, feeling, sensing, smelling, listening in a garden or wood. Small creatures rustle in the leaves, bark and flowers.’ At others, we encounter violence, without the word’s negative connotations: the power of a volcano, a giant wave or floods, the harsh environments of other planets, or urban jungles.
ON THE USE OF HARMONY IN ART
To paraphrase the artist’s statement: ‘The impetus of my art is colour–a living force acting dynamically on the imagination. I’m interested in the fascinating and inexhaustible permutations of colour and form, the deliberate selection of tones and chroma for their chromatic value, as in music many independent notes may produce harmony or disharmony and be synchronised or combined in counterpoint. As experimental compositions challenge the ear, these canvases are not necessarily ‘easy on the eye’; they elicit a reaction and ‘fascinate’ (to quote a collector).
‘Later, already an art student, my next love was Wassily KANDINSKY. With The Yellow Sound (1909) he crossed the threshold into abstraction. Kandinsky’s unique expressive use of colour was a revelation; the musicality of his compositions, density and imaginative paintwork.’ Clare is an avid reader and a jazz aficionado. The cadences, rhythms and emotional bandwidth of literature and music absorbed over decades metamorphose into visual elements.
FAVOURITE INFLUENCERS AND RESEARCH
A lifelong influencer is Paul CEZANNE: ‘Seeing the majesty and beauty of la montagne Sainte-Victoire moved me to tears. The Mediterranean blue sky and white mountain become the Cézanne Blue… I enjoy surprising art that describes and informs me of something unusual, different, like Helen FRANKENTHALER’s abstracted landscapes for their colour spontaneity, openness and delicacy.’
Clare lives in the countryside, where she is ‘fortunate to admire a night sky with minimal light pollution: comets, ball lightning and planets have all been sources of inspiration. As well as my observation, the research of space probes and satellites, discoveries of exoplanets, and terraforming schemes have filtered into my space-themed series, e.g. GERMINATING JUPITER.3
‘My ELECTRIC STORM4 paintings express my journey across the skies. An impulse for this series was the comet NEOWISE which flew by Earth in mid-July 2020. From my studio window, I could see this compacted, icy rock, visible to the naked eye from late evening to early morning. I was mesmerised by this white glow hanging in the same spot for weeks. […] As the name suggests, they are also inspired by storms: sheet lighting and thunder, a great noise and discord in the sky. Then everything is still–a starry night with owls and nightjars calling.’
THE IMPORTANCE OF SCULPTORS AND GLASS ARTISTS
Sculptors are as much of a ‘reservoir’ as painters, notably: ‘the purity of CYCLADIC sculpture, its antiquity and the historical development into the marvellous work of Constantin BRANCUSI, especially his series of disembodied heads such as The Sleeping Muse (1910); the work of Louise NEVELSON for her monumental assemblages of monochromatic wooden found forms; the work of the contemporary Italian sculptor Luciano FABRO, his intelligent and innovative contradictions of forms and ideas.’ Fabro explains: ‘Ever since I started…I have tried…to use language, work, experience, culture, sensations, everything that occurs in regard to our nature, our pleasure, or our limits, in order to bring things together again.’5
Clare AVERY works in acrylics on paper and board with equal virtuosity. These creations are bright and intricate, possessing a different, ‘fresher’ energy, sometimes muted or with restricted hues. They lean towards history and archaeology, evoking palimpsest and calligraphy (e.g. the series Pierre de Rosette). Glass artists, particularly Dale CHIHULY (Pilchuck Glass School), are an incentive. ‘I’m awed by his exceptional glassblowing and his and his team’s technical control, spectral combinations and inventive tactile shapes, and his use of light through glass.’ Quoting Chihuly: ‘Glass is the most magical of materials. I want people to be overwhelmed with light and colour.’6
Colour ‘can astonish dangerously […] but, more importantly, it can be a power for healing, understanding and communication.’7
MORE OF HER WORK
If you would like to better aquaint yourself with Clare AVERY and her vibrant works, visit her website and social media platforms :
Studio visits by appointment.
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Notes
1. AUTUMNAL CASCADES oil painting series, 2023-4.
2. FLORA AND FAUNA oil painting series, 2023-4.
3. GERMINATING JUPITER oil painting series, 2022-3.
4. ELECTRIC STORM oil painting series, 2023-4.
5. Luciano FABRO, editor Deborah Bruce, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 1992, p 9.
6. Out of the Fire, Bonnie Miller, Chronicle Books San Francisco, 1991, p 30.
7. Colour, editor Helen Varley, Marshall Editions Limited, 1983, p 9.
Text copyright © Lee Nash 2024
Lee Nash
Lee Nash was born in West Sussex, England and grew up in South Africa; she now lives in the Charente department, France. She has worked as an editor, a proofreader and an editorial designer, and is now a freelance writer. She is also a flautist with an honours degree in music from Anglia Ruskin University, Cambridge, UK. Her writing has appeared in diverse journals and anthologies and has won or been placed in international competitions.