CLARE THOMAS - EXPOSURE INTERNATIONAL OPEN CALL

My mother has Alzheimer’s. Her mind, home to her psyche, is breaking down. Her memory (including memories I share with her) is becoming lost to her, and with it, her identity. These intensely autobiographical drawings and collages, made in response to my mother’s memory loss, tell the story of imperfectly remembered events: memories “stored” in family photographs yet still subject to disorganisation and even disintegration.

Starting with photocopied photographs, I cut, collage, and draw on paper and card with graphite, paint, and ink. I use repurposed cardboard boxes and old drawings and prints. I distress, erase, trace, and layer. In some pieces, people appear in contrived landscapes, to which they may or may not belong. In others, the people that once occupied the photograph have disappeared altogether, and all that is left are empty profiles.

The work creates an imaginary container for my mother's memories, in which new stories and new connections have emerged to replace the old.

BIOGRAPHY

Clare Thomas is a multi-disciplinary artist who makes work about home, belonging, and memory. She uses found and domestic materials, and combines art and craft techniques, to create a body of work whose narrative is both deeply autobiographical and universal.
Thomas holds an MA in Art and Environment from the University of Falmouth, UK, and her work has been shown in Canada, the UK, and Germany. She lives in Victoria, BC, where she is a founding member of BOXCARSIX artist collective.