Claire Oliver

Like music can take you back to a place and time, I believe colour can take you traveling too. As an Artist, I am interested in the visceral response we can have to colour and the places it can take us. In my paintings, I am searching for something - a connection - my own voice. I have become lost in a sea of other people’s ideas. In wanting to blend in and not be seen, my own identity has become lost, like scattered pieces floating in the wind. The Artworks I make are an attempt to draw those pieces back in - the more fragments I find, the closer I am to becoming whole.

I do not wish for this to sound melancholy, in many ways it is the opposite. The process of making art has transformative power. As a child I spent hours colouring-in, I have since learned that colouring-in can relax the fear center of the brain. In my art practice, I am returning to my childhood instincts - I believe if we listen to our inner voices they can guide us in the direction we need to go. The meditative state I reach through making allows me to reach a place where I can shut out the cacophony of noise in our modern world and hear more acutely the guidance I need.

Claire Oliver was born in 1981 in Leicestershire and now resides in Leeds. Her tiny ...

Claire Studied Graphic Design in her formative years, returning to University later to complete an MA in Visual Art at Nottingham Trent.

2023 A Generous Space 3 - Huddersfield Art Gallery. UK
2023 During Waking Hours - Compact Contemporary, Leeds. UK
2022 Winter Solstice - Frontier Gallery, Sheffield. UK
2022 We Called Yesterday, Today - Cupola Gallery, Sheffield. UK

2022 A Generous Space - Hastings Contemporary. UK
2008 MA Exposition - Bonington Gallery, Nottingham. UK
2008 MA Show - New Art Exchange, Nottingham. UK