These highly-dynamic sculptures by visual artist Claire Morgan are captivating on so many different levels. Many of the animals in her artwork seem to evoke a potential for freedom and life’s poignant vulnerability. The relationship between movement and stillness is compelling in her installations, while the compositional patterns she creates form a beautiful rhythmic tone.
Claire explains the installation above: “Fluid is a piece where a crow appears to be plummeting through a dense plane of vivid red strawberries. The crow is a taxidermy specimen, but the strawberries surrounding it are fresh and begin to decay before the piece can even be fully installed, dripping juices and mold all around the crow, thus conflicting with the notion of what taxidermy traditionally is, and our own preconceptions of how we might relate to each aspect of the work. It plays with time and this is a notion I am interested in pushing as far as I can.”
On her work: “I believe art can have power and in my work I aspire to bring life to contrived situations, through suspension presenting my materials in a state that lies somewhere between stillness and movement. I want to be shocked by, and make other people shocked by, very normal things. In order to achieve this I am always trying to take things a step further than entirely necessary – making sculpture that poses a genuine physical and mental challenge for me and hoping it might have a powerful impact on others who look at it.”
Claire Morgan was born in Belfast. She attended University of Ulster and Northumbria University, where she achieved a first class degree in Sculpture. She is now based in London.
