Review: Publication Launch
Clare Price in conversation with Jon Sharples at ASC Gallery at the launch of the publication ‘Fragility Spills’

For Virginia Woolf it was a room of her own, but for Clare Price the requisite safe space for creativity is – like her work – a more abstract construct: simultaneously concrete and fluid. At the launch of Fragility Spills – a companion publication to Clare’s solo show of the same name – the artist talked to Jon Sharples about her practice, and the importance of safe spaces to her life and creative process was a subject they returned to throughout their otherwise wide-ranging conversation.

Described by Jon as a ‘painting mega-fan’, Clare paints as a way to make sense of the world. She has occupied her studio for more than ten years (rare amongst London-based artists) and remained there throughout her time at Goldsmiths, an experience she describes as tough, but ultimately life-saving. No surprise then that Clare describes her studio as a safe space! More surprising to me is that from her earliest days of posting selfies of herself covered in paint, Instagram has provided the artist with another of her safe spaces – but as Clare told Jon, when she began, ‘I had nothing to lose and that was very freeing.’ Since then, photos have become another means by which Clare makes sense of the world, and her selfies standalone works independent of the paintings they feature.

In the course of her conversation with Jon, we learn that the dance floor is another of Clare’s safe spaces, which led me to reflect that in her performative selfies we are privileged to witness a truth that it is only possible for Clare to reveal when three spaces – studio, Insta, dance floor – combine with a fourth (the painting itself) to create for her the safest of spaces. Perhaps.

Talking about her work, Clare admits that ‘It takes time to understand… I’m 47, there’s a lot in it!’ The artist is open about the time she has spent working on herself and the role of therapists in this process, dedicating the exhibition to ‘Anne Farley and Harry K in gratitude for the safe spaces they have given me, and as always to darling Nye [Clare’s teenage son]’.

Continuing this theme, Jon noted that in the past people have commented on the apparent disconnect between the ‘slick, confident’ paintings and the anxious woman who created them, but it is clear that paintings and artist are increasingly moving towards each other. Clare’s work is now less contained by geometry, reflecting that she is herself less contained; where before the creation of her work was a three-stage process (release, control, controlled release) it is now only one: controlled release. Drawing their conversation to a close at this point, Jon and Clare agreed that they are excited to see where her work goes next. It only remains for me to say that here at She Performs, so are we!

ADDENDUM
After the talk Holly, Lynn and I had the chance to catch up with Clare and it was only as we stood chatting that I noticed she had – consciously or not – created another safe space for herself in her choice of outfit: a dress painted with sweeping brush strokes by London-based fashion label Yokotsuno in collaboration with artist Nora Hansen, teamed with the silver heels she wears in many of her Insta photos. Now THAT’S power dressing of the kind Mary Beard would approve!

by Nicola Waterman

​Fragility Spills / Clare Price / Benjamin Whitley / Cairo Clarke
ASC Gallery
09.11.2018 - 20.01.2019