Clare Rennie
Originals
Clare Rennie uses mixed media techniques to evoke a memory of time and place in her work. The faded grandeur of the peeling facades of Venetian palaces, revealing their echoing stories layer by layer, a glimpse into another life and time. Vintage mannequins discovered in a long forgotten Parisian atelier. Victorian architecture and ornate details from Classical, Byzantine and Venetian Gothic styles sit alongside the more natural forms of shells, plants and birds. Fragments from handwritten letters, poetry and vintage wallpaper are incorporated into the collaged backgrounds of her paintings, creating surface textures which suggest the patina of age and which hint at the ethereal.
Clare graduated from Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art in 1996 with an honours degree in Silversmithing and Jewellery Design, with a Support Study in Printmaking. She worked as a designer and maker for a number of years, both freelance and for larger design companies. Her jewellery has been exhibited across the UK at venues including the Business Design Centre in Islington, the Barbican Centre London and the National Museum of Scotland.
Throughout this time she continued to exhibit the prints and collages she began as part of her degree, and since 2001 she has combined a career in art education with the development of her own paintings. Over the last 10 years she has exhibited regularly throughout Scotland, both in smaller galleries and in larger exhibitions including the Paisley Art Institute, The Royal Glasgow Institute and the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour.