curriculum vitae october 2009

I am an artist who has worked in a number of ways – with installation, assemblages, environments using papers, resins, fabrics, wood, metal. More recently I have incorporated the traditional processes of painting and drawing – watercolour, oils, acrylics, charcoal, pastel – into my practice. I have exhibited widely and have been involved in projects with other artists – students, professionals and amateurs- for over 30 years.

I have lived and painted on Dartmoor for the last 20 years and my work has moved between figurative expressions of narrative, and abstract evocations of light and atmosphere, often linked to myths and legends of the moor and the ideas of animism - that natural objects, phenomena, and the universe itself have consciousness. The constant changing light and weather, the beauty and treachery of the landscape, the evidence of thousands of years of human involvement make these legends comprehensible and relevant.

I have also established and teach a programme of courses for people interested in creatively exploring the landscape environment through painting and drawing. This has been running for 18 years.

CLAIRE SMITH lives and works on Dartmoor, Devon and in East London.

• Born Bristol 1949
• Reading University BA Hons Fine Art 1st Class 1967-1971
• Chelsea School of Art MA Fine Art 1972-1973
• Goldsmiths University London Postgraduate Diploma Contemporary Art History 2005-07
• Goldsmiths University London MA Contemporary Art Theory 2007-09
  

SELECTED PROJECTS

1972, co-founder and involved in running Acme Housing Association in East London (later to become ACME Gallery and ACME Studios).
1977 – 1989, lecturer Central St Martins College of Art, visiting lecturer Brighton, Wimbledon, Chelsea Colleges of Art, University East London, Oxford University, Reading University.
1980s, curator and participator in exhibitions of women’s art in London and presented at several conferences around the UK on the visibility of women in the cultural scene.
1981 – 3, three “Artist in Schools” residencies for the Whitechapel Gallery Education Programme and Tower Hamlets Arts in primary schools in East London.
1986 - 7, commission for mural “Limehouse Reach”, Limehouse Library, Tower Hamlets, London as part of Tower Hamlets Arts Women’s Festival.
1987 till present, moved to Dartmoor, Devon and established ‘Greenawell’, a small self-sufficient upland farm offering opportunities to groups of people of different ages from various backgrounds for creative exploration in direct response to the landscape environment.
1989/1990, “A Sense of Place”, a year-long project funded by Devon County Council and South West Arts, involving six artists working in specific places in Devon, each facilitating a group of young adults with creative responses to their local environment.
1995 till present, trustee and member of MED Theatre, a Dartmoor based community theatre committed to enabling the performing arts to be cultivated and developed within Dartmoor’s rural communities and producing and commissioning new work relevant to the area.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2002 Tavistock Wharf, Tavistock, Devon
1999 Chagford Arts Festival, The Barns, Chagford, Devon
1994 Dartmoor Gallery, Princetown, Devon
1989, 1992 Plymouth Arts Centre, Plymouth
1987 IKON Gallery, Birmingham
1983 SPACEX Gallery, Exeter
1979 Richard Demarco Gallery, Edinburgh
1976 ACME Gallery, London
Gardner Centre Gallery, University of Sussex

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS [since 1980]

2005, 2006 “Multum in Parvo” Hackney Forge Gallery E. London
2000 “The Lion in Winter” Lion House Gallery, Moretonhampstead, Devon
“Nine Days of Art” Greenawell, Dartmoor
“Watercolour 21st Century” RWS, Bankside Gallery, London
1998 “A Sense of Place, a State of Mind” Plymouth College of Art
1997 “16 Artists” Chagford Arts Festival, Chagford, Devon
1990 “A Sense of Place” Royal Albert Museum, Exeter
“South West Open” Plymouth Arts Centre, Plymouth
“New Art in Exeter” SPACEX Gallery, Exeter
1986 “Seascape” Laing Art Gallery, Newcastle
1985 “Landscape” Whitechapel Gallery and SHAPE touring exhibition, London
“Thirty London Artists” Royal Academy, London
1984 “Three Painters” Guildhall Gallery, City of London Festival, London
1982 “St Martins’ Painters” Seven Dials Gallery, London
“Similar Concerns in Contemporary Painting and Glass” Oxford County Museum
1981 “Art and the Sea” Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol.
“Art and the Sea” ICA Gallery, London
“Artists for Nuclear Disarmament” ACME Gallery, London
1980 “Eight Artists: Women: 1980” ACME Gallery, London

PUBLIC COLLECTIONS

University of Sussex, London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Devon County Council