- 2022 - ENGLISH - NEDERLANDS/DUTCH CLICK HERE

Claire Partington 'HistoricaL Fiction'

 

Book: Celebrating 10 years of historical fiction 

 

Claire Partington has built an oeuvre over the past 10 years that is widely loved and recognized. With eye-catching, quirky and refined objects, Claire has clearly established herself as one of the most interesting young sculptors in Europe. About time for an overview of her best work in this wonderful new book.

About the work
Claire Partington's ornate ceramic sculptures are inspired by European art styles since the Renaissance. Mixed together with contemporary 21st century references they create exquisite pieces that touch upon issues like gender and power, image and identity. The book shows the pieces, zooms in on catching details and elaborates on the idea development and creation process.

About the authors
Spanning ten years of her artistic practice, Partington’s first monograph features highlights from 2011 - 2021 selected with editor Hans Bos. With insight from the artist herself and text contributions by Danielle Thom (Curator, Museum of London), Amy Orrock (Senior Curator, Compton Verney) and curator and educator Michael Czerwinski, this book offers a unique glimpse into Partington’s working methods and the concepts behind the works.

About KochxBos Publishers
KochxBos Publishers have, since 2014, devoted themselves to compiling and presenting the art and backgrounds of their gallery artists such as Sarah Maple and Dadara within artisanal and insightful luxurious publications. Performing as curatorts and designers of their hard cover art books, they introduce and immerse you in the visual worlds and ideas of their artists. 

Claire Partington
‘Historical Fiction’
Price € 45,- (approx. $ 45,- / 38,- GBP)

 
Details
ISBN 9789082194487
224 Full colour pages
214 x 274 x 30 mm

Hard cover: the pages are edged in pink, with UV-gloss details
on the hardback
Weight 1400 grams
Sides of the book are pink coloured

About the exhibition September 3 – October 1, 2022
Claire Partington and Lindsey Carr

Partington’s work has been shown worldwide and features in notable international collections including the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Museum of London, the Walker Art Gallery, Seattle Art Museum, Ömer Koç Collection, Istanbul and the Reyden Weiss Collection in Germany.
Lindsey Carr is an artist based in Scotland with a remarkable ability to revisit movements of past art periods and re-interpret them in her own unique and incomparable manner. Over the past couple of years she re-invented 17th Century Dutch tulip paintings, through a process of distortion by degrees, resulting in technically astounding and visually captivating botanical portraiture.
The artist will be present to sign the book in KochxBos Gallery on September 2, 2022.

© Claire Partington / KochxBos Publishers Amsterdam


 

 



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Some page impressions.

 

ABOUT CLAIRE PARTINGTON

Claire Partington’s art has been shown at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London UK, she had a major museum installation at the Seattle Art Museum in USA and collaborate with The National Gallery in London UK. She also won the Grant 1st prize in 2018 of the Virginia Groot Foundation.

Her work generally deals with narrative, symbolism, gender and status. Her interest lies in symbols and how people use them to identify with certain social groups. Her work also deals with the long European tradition of appropriation and reinterpretation of design styles, fashions and cultures.

Most of her big ceramic sculptures are made in earthenware, and now and then stoneware and porcelain. The pieces are all built from the base up as hollow vessels using coils of clay (like sausages). The coils are smoothed together and shape the figure as it is being built upwards. The pieces are refined and sculpted and then added with sprigged decoration, which is clay pushed into plaster moulds made from things like jewellery or toys – like the raised decoration you get on Wedgwood vases. The pieces are fired, glazed and then with use  of digital enamel transfers or paint onto the surface with enamels and metal lustres. In total, the process can take up to four months, but Partington has a number of figures in production at the same time.

Claire Partington graduated from Central Saint Martins in 1995 with a 1st in Fine Art Sculpture. She went on to work within some of the Museums and Galleries that had initially fired her enthusiasm for Art and Craft (most notably the V&A) and continued her post graduate education in Museum Studies.

In 2003 she resumed making. This time concentrating on ceramics, attendeding Kensington and Chelsea College evening classes from 2003-2008 and started to produce work drawing on influences gained from a non-Craft education and a wealth of vocational experience working with National Collections.

Claire Partington’s work is in private collections worldwide including the Reydan Weiss Collection and 21C Museum.

She lives and works in London.

ABOUT THE WORK

Narrative and the retelling and misinterpretation of stories is at the centre of her work. Initially concentrating on reimagining and retelling Folk and fairy stories with particularly strong imagery, then merging these stories with imagined back stories for historical figures and their associated iconic imagery.

The aesthetic inspiration is drawn largely from European Applied Art and Design styles from the 1600’s onwards. Underpinning this is the long European tradition of appropriation and reinterpretation or misinterpretation of “exotic” styles that can be seen in National Collections across Europe. She likes the idea of getting it slightly wrong and the bluffing and “cobbling together” of styles that has resulted in some fantastic historical objects.

Claire Partington started making sprigged vessels inspired by the salt glazed “bartmann” figurative bottles, but with the look of tin glazed earthenware from the 1600’s. This evolved into the fully figurative vessels she is making at present, starting with the bottle shaped wide court mantua dresses of the 1700's. The figures have head “stoppers” to reflect the origin from the figurative bottle and sometimes an additional head stopper to illustrate the metamorphosis of a character.

Her work has a very familiar feel to it due to the historical and literary references, even though it has it’s own very definite aesthetic. The pieces are all meticulously hand built, using traditional ceramic techniques. They are coil built, then the shape is refined before adding surface decorations of sprigged (press molded) ephemera and modern computer generated enamel decoration over the glaze.

© 2022 KochxBos Publishers Amsterdam / Claire Partington.