Review: Clare Price ‘Fragility Spills’, ASC Gallery, London, 09.11.2018 - 20.01.2019
Fragility Spills - An exploration into the power and delicacy that is Clare Price.
The interdependence of power and delicacy, authority and vulnerability is the defining element of this exhibition. Clare’s paintings are life-size and commanding within the space, tracing her body both literally by the performance her body makes in the process of painting but simultaneously by the visceral, corporeal tangibility of the paint.
Entering the ASC gallery you are met by the only painting with a literal representation of precision and control – a geometrical shape entwined with the abstraction. This initial painting is the most literal translation of what Clare calls her process of control, release, controlled-release, and sets the tone for what follows. The abstract expressionist paintings are refreshingly female. Far from the familiar male-splattered canvases that are typically brought to mind when thinking of the movement, Clare’s works are the wet, viscous splash of femininity.
Within the space you feel the need to push the walls away, give the works more space. Each canvas rich with colour, texture and body. But perhaps this is what amplifies the power of the exhibition, intensifying the idea of confinement and containment that Clare explore in her work. The canvases envelop you, giving comfort and reassurance. Clare speaks often of her safe spaces, and the power that they hold for her body and mind. Her studio – one which has been hers for 12 years, her canvases - the boundaries of the wooden frames, and her therapists. Her publication, of the same name as the exhibition, Fragility Spills, was dedicated to her ex and current therapists thanking them for the safety and security they had provided her.
These safe spaces are both in-real-life and virtual, with Clare’s Instagram account playing a vital role in her newest series. In the gallery there are two projectors displaying slideshows of still images, seemingly disparate other than the same body in view. On the left are Clare’s own images taken privately in her studio in front of her paintings with a remote shutter release. She uses her private Instagram account to disseminate the images, allowing the audiences another view into the artist studio and process. They offer the audience the ability to consider the maker and the making of the images. On the right are more polished images, taken by Benjamin Whitley, a male fashion photographer in his 20's. These images feel more glamorous and refined, adding a gaze that is otherwise undetectable in the exhibition.
Fragility Spills see’s the first instance of these photographs being shown alongside the paintings. The positioning of the projections, on the furthest wall of the gallery, allows you to view the paintings independently first before renegotiating the space with the images of Clare’s body to mind. The recognition of the body as an artist’s tool and as a sexual being becomes paramount to the understanding of the exhibition and individual artworks on the second viewing.
There is control, command and authority within the works, but overpoweringly: a relinquishing. An opening up, a release, a surrendering to their life-giving performance, and in turn their makers vulnerability. They speak softly and powerfully in equal measure, revelling in their delicacy. And, although the works are hugely autobiographical, they remain open and abstracted enough for audiences to project their own experiences and emotions on to.
When asked about the constraints and limitations of the canvases, Clare reaffirmed her craving for safe spaces. The confinement that the wooden frame gives her being the very thing that allows her to be so open on the canvas.
To experience her work online, I would suggest going to her Instagram account rather than her website. Her Instagram account is essentially an artwork in itself, the limitations in dimension, the grid-like layout and the short snappy captions allowing Clare and her artworks both the platform and the safe-space to thrive.
by Holly Daizy Broughton
Fragility Spills / Clare Price / Benjamin Whitley / Cairo Clarke
ASC Gallery
09.11.2018 - 20.01.2019