Sweeping away the two-dimensional limitations of painting, Mary-Clare Buckles work - in the textile/fibre art medium - has a tactile, three-dimensional quality and exemplifies her character - vibrant, colourful, effervescent and full of life. As a fibre artist, she works predominantly in felted wool, but has always avoided the traditional craft‚ connotations of this medium. A large body of her work will be exhibited in her solo exhibition at the prestigious Forest Arts in Hampshire, UK.
She has developed the technique of Floating felts, mounting the - ethereal and almost transparent - pieces between sheets of clear acrylic, so that light can interact with them. Unlike conventional framing, the viewer‚s eye is not constrained to a rectangle and, hung slightly away from the wall, the pieces appear to be floating in space.
The artist also lights the floating felt pieces from behind or the side and uses gently flashing lights and uv-tubes to create a variety of different and exciting effects - intentionally blurring the boundaries between art and interior design, she adds.
Mary-Clares inspiration often derives from pop culture and the clubbing scene: the fluorescent clothes, glow-sticks, lasers, flashing coloured lights and the abstract moving images projected onto screens behind the Djs.
She is also working on a range of pop-culture and BritArt-inspired conceptual work - some pieces as floating felts and some more solid‚ pieces, which are framed conventionally. The creative process for this work often starts with an idea from a subverted cultural icon, a song title, or an idea in her head in the middle of the night - such as a piece called Me and its companion piece You (exhibited as giclée prints), or It‚s Raining Men and Kiss Kiss (both exhibited at Forest Arts).
Its Raining Men combines digital images with a wool fibre background and was originally suggested by the Weather Girls song and will be followed by a companion piece - Its Raining Women, with images of female celebrities. She is also working on a series of tourist cliché‚ pieces - subverting the archetypal images associated with a geographical area, by isolating them in her art: a London-themed piece will have images of red phone boxes, double-decker buses, beefeaters, etc. She was the runner-up for a major commission at Dorset County Hospital, where the proposed work was a tourist cliché‚ piece on an Australian theme.
Mary-Clare Buckle studied art and three-dimensional design at the Surrey Institute of Art & Design and the University of Central England. Her work can be viewed, all the year round, at her studio-gallery in the village of Abbotsbury, Dorset, southern England or on her much-acclaimed website, www.1-art-1.com.
Mary-Clare Buckle is a Premiere Portfolio Artist at absolutearts.com. View more of her work at: http://www.absolutearts.com/portfolios/m/maryclarebuckle/.
IMAGE
Mary-Clare Buckle
Kiss Kiss
2004
Fiber
65 x 64 cm
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