I am an artist/researcher working across a wide range of media; from drawing and sculpture to text-works and live art events (often in the form of walks). Everyday routine, the ordinary and unnoticed and the meeting of the personal and the political are sources of inspiration.
Collecting and collating words, images and artefacts forms the basis for sculptural and installation works. I make objects and images over long periods of time using ongoing processes that dictate their own form, or have no fixed form, shifting as they develop so that they might never be resolved in one ‘finished’ piece. Everyday materials – accessible materials like paper and thread, found fabrics, ephemera, form the core of my making – combined with existing objects, photography and drawing. The focus is on my own familiar, the urban environment that I inhabit. Domesticity is a recurring theme; examining the repetitions and routine of the quotidian. I relish the development of arcane skills, committing hundreds of hours of work to an object or an idea.
Walking is a key practice in the creation of my work, and a medium that I regularly use. Walks as necessity, routine walks, getting places without spending any money, walking as a freedom, as a subversive practice, as a visual art practice, and as a performance. Walks become live art events, site specific performances and research method for developing text, installation, film, audio and performance works. Projects that forefront walking include; walkwalkwalk: an archaeology of the familiar and forgotten, Perambulator, Spinning Stories, and East End Jam. I was a founder member of the Walking Artists Network, and continue to facilitate its online presence and occasional in-person events.
I am a part-time lecturer at the University of East London where my teaching and research reflect the core interests of my art practice; forefronting interdisciplinarity, participation and site specificity. I have also taught as an associate lecturer at London Metropolitan University most recently leading an interdisciplinary studio for architecture, design and fine art students titled ‘London Walking’. I have guest lectured at a wide range of institutions including Falmouth (theatre and performance) Chelsea College of Art (textiles), London College of Fashion (fashion communication), and the University of Portsmouth (architecture and interior design).
Contact: clarequalmann@hotmail.com
