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Claudia Clare is known for her large-scale, slip-painted, earthenware jars that depict everyday scenes showing the impact of major events on the lives of ordinary people. She is particularly interested in domestic ‘genre’ scenes and her most recent work emphasizes the intimate relationship between people and place. Jackie Wullschläger from the Financial Times described her work as 'history painting from a democratic view-point, in a domestic medium, which celebrates the hand-made material object as well as art's subversion.' Clare co-wrote The Pot Book (Phaidon, 2011) with Edmund de Waal and her second book, Subversive Ceramics, (Bloomsbury 2016) came out last year to great acclaim.
Like Grayson Perry’s work, Clare’s satirical approach and political narrative can be traced back in its tradition to the great British 18th Century satirist James Gillray who used printmaking and caricatures for social commentary.
Clare exploits the aesthetic and dramatic potential of her pots in order to maximize the visual and narrative impact. She states “I make pots to record the effect of social change and historic events on ordinary, everyday lives. Ceramics are our museum pieces and our archaeological evidence: mine are the contemporary version. Feminism brings a sense of intimacy to stories I work with and to the political issues they illuminate. As part of our domestic lives, pots are easily recognised and understood and, as such, can act both as memorials and as a call for action.”
