From Whence We Came, 2021
British painter Claudia Carr (b. 1965) trained at the Slade School of Art (BA and MA). She has held teaching positions at the Slade School of Art, the Royal College of Art, and the Royal Drawing School. Carr currently lectures at the Royal Drawing school, Heatherleys School of Fine Art, and the Royal College of Art.
Ostensibly a landscape painter, Carr creates desolate, uncanny scenes. Her work centres around the exploration of the interplay between perception and reality. Upon closer examination, her subjects are revealed not as earthly forms, but still lifes. Painting mostly from natural objects found while out walking - and stored in her studio until they have 'ripened' - Carr transforms this detritus (miniature plastic animals, string, vegetables, take-away coffee cups, stones and lumps of stale bread) into landmarks within vast, otherworldly landscapes. Believing that the intense observation of an object can lead to abstraction, she challenges the viewer's understanding of what they see before them.