Claire Chandler

Claire Chandler is a contemporary abstract painter based in south London. The artist works from a direct response to visual memories of places she has lived, travelled to or explored. Through a layering of colour and a richness of surface the viewer is invited to wander and explore, creating their own personal journey.

Claire Chandlers work is a direct response to her surroundings and visual places she has lived in and explored. As a child Claire moved around a lot and has been traveling multiple times in her adult life. This has lead her to be heavily inspired by nature and its colours, shape and form. Claire Chandler studies a Fine Art degree at Newcastle, this is where her love of Abstract Expressionism merger with her admiration for nature. Having been influenced by the spontaneity of artist Joan Mitchell, the intense emotional colour of Rothko and the freedom in Helen Frankenhaler's large canvas'.

“Drawing the landscape is at the heart of my practice, I draw in the local area in which I live or in areas I am visiting or passing through.  I work en plein air using a sketchbook, often in charcoal or watercolour.

Over time I've come to realise you don’t need prime locations or the best view points to inspire your work, it can be the park at the end of the road. It’s about the way you look and interpret what you see, and I express this in my own unique way through colour and mark making.

When I’m back in my studio I use these sketches and drawings to transport me back to that space, it works so much better for me like this, photos are not important as I am responding to the elements rather that visual imagery.

My paintings then evolve and change as I work on them with layers and layers of translucent colour.  Often they take months to come together.  I work on a large series at a time, usually 15-20 canvases and boards are constantly moving around my studio. I only stop when I feel that they work to represent how I felt in that time and place. “ – Claire Chandler.