THE ARCHAEOCETI: A FIFTY MILLION YEAR OLD SMILE Print

British artist Claire Milner was famously commissioned to create the Blue Marilyn portrait for Rihanna, widely featured by the global media, but her personal body of work is made up of paintings inspired by her time spent in Africa focusing on social and environmental issues. In May 2023 Milner was selected as one of fewer than ten artists worldwide for Active Membership of the Gallery Climate Coalition, along with several blue chip galleries, institutions and museums. Her work was selected by the conference organisers to be exhibited in the Blue Zone of COP26. She works in collections which are continuously evolving around the theme of nature, our place within it and encroachment upon it. Environmental references such as climate change and mass extinction have been the central focus of her image making for more than two decades. Her artworks include diverse mediums including paint, paper and collage, and as a signifier of her familial ties to Italy, she sometimes incorporates the ancient art of mosaic - famous for animal depictions – and crystal methodologies as a symbiosis of past and present. Her portrayal of animals’ interchanges between the metaphoric and the literal, yet the impact of humanity remains implicit, even when the human figure is absent or plays a minor role in the composition. Her process begins with extensive research, engaging in hours of study, compiling statistics and viewing painful imagery of the consequences of poaching, habitat loss and climate change. A great deal of consideration is given to the integration of this material into the final composition, where realistic and abstract elements coexist, alongside carefully selected art historical references and themes from classical literature forming a balance of topical and historical narratives. Milner’s work has been displayed in museum exhibitions in the UK and her paintings have been widely featured in the global media including the BBC, BLOUIN ARTINFO, Channel News Asia, Elle, Forbes, Huffington Post Arts, The Observer, Save Virunga, The Telegraph, The Times, Vogue Paris and Vogue India.