Passing By© Clare Yarrington
As the 2009 winner of the award named after John Duncan Fergusson, the star of the Scottish Colourist movement which pronounced a new spin on the shimmering vibrancy of the French impressionism of the 19th century, Clare Yarrington’s ethos comes wrapped in rich colours and glorious landscapes.
An archaeologist at heart, she scales mountains, climbs rocks and teeters on the edge of coasts, sketching as she goes.
“Drawings done in situ convey the immediacy of being in the landscape or the actuality of a figure climbing,” she observes.
“I am interested in how our environment has been formed and how we interact with it. We remember our own experiences, and I am intrigued at how to visually express this.”
Climber © Clare Yarrington
“I can be more experimental and explore varying perspectives,” she explains. “They juxtapose different ideas and images. Using scraps of my own superseded works as visual fragments I collage, then draw, paint, scrape away and collage again if needed.”
She compares these fragments to archaeological reconstructions of memory. “The result is full of ambiguities, as the past and our memories always are,” she adds.
“But the coming together of differing visual ideas can bring about new possibilities that would never have been made any other way.”
Artist’s talk in the gallery on January 19 2011 at 12pm.
