exhibition

Interval – a Markmakers Exhibition

| Claire

My new work, What are you waiting for? features in the latest exhibition by artist collective Markmakers, which opens at The Brindley Arts Centre, Runcorn on 2 October 2017.  This set of six custom-made belts feature retractable crowd control barriers, designed to be worn by performers in a public space, creating moveable spaces for waiting as the wearers move around a street.  The first experimental iteration of this intervention will take place in Runcorn on Monday 9th October 2017 and if you’d like to join in or come and observe, then get in touch via my contact page.

The work is part of the exhibition Interval, by Markmakers.

What is an interval?
Is it just blank space?
Is there anything of interest in the gaps?

The latest exhibition by Markmakers invites you take an interval. Step inside the punctuated, whitewashed walls of the gallery and consider self imposed breaks in life. Explore concepts of time. Sit, stand, look or listen.

Have a break, visit interval.

The Brindley Gallery, Runcorn
2 October-25 November 2017

Meet the artists event
Saturday 7 October 2017, 12:00-13:00

The Brindley, High Street, Runcorn, WA7 1BG
FREE. Mon – Fri 10am – 5pm, Sat 10am – 2pm.
Closed Sundays & Bank Holidays.

Drawings – July-September 2017

| Claire

I’ve had a recent flurry of drawing activity that has had a public showing over the summer.  A pair of monoprints titled ‘Helped up/Held down’ won the Drawing category at the St Helens Open exhibition at the World of Glass, these drawings are also due to appear in a national arts publication soon, which I’ll share when it is published:

And a set of three drawings that are part of the ‘Drawing the Collection’ exhibition, also at The World of Glass. They are based on observations in the hot glass studio of The World of Glass, observing how the ellipses of glass morph and change in the process of hand blowing different vessels.

‘Drawing the Collection’ is on show at The World of Glass until Friday 3rd November 2017.

TEN: Cornerstone Gallery, Hope University Liverpool

| Claire

7 July – 10 October

The Cornerstone Gallery at Hope University in Liverpool celebrates it’s ten year anniversary this summer with an exhibition of artists who have exhibited there in the previous decade.  I’ll be showing one of my pinned collages created in Shanghai in 2012.  The show will be open during the Liverpool Independents Biennial, 9am-5pm weekdays only.

The Cornerstone Gallery,
Liverpool Hope University,
Creative Campus,
17 Shaw Street,
Liverpool, L6 1HP.

A landscape of marginal encounters

| Claire

My solo exhibition ‘A landscape of marginal encounters’ opens from Saturday 28 June 2014 at The Brindley Arts Centre in Runcorn.  From the draw o expansive spaces in big cities to encounters in more intimate spaces, this exhibition will feature new installations and artworks which explore how people move through spaces and what factors affect that movement.

Saturday 26 July

Artist’s talk | 1pm | free event
Claire Weetman will be speaking about her work in the gallery at the Brindley.

All welcome, refreshments will be served.


A Landscape of marginal Encounters
28 June – 9 August 2014
The Brindley
High Street Runcorn, WA7 1BG
www.thebrindley.org.uk

Supported by Arts Council England Grants for the Arts, Halton Borough Council Arts Development Team, Castlefield Gallery New Art Spaces, Metal Time and Space residency, New Mills Arts Festival.

The Drawing Project – Castlefield Gallery

| Claire

Last Thursday night saw the opening of this exhibition, which continues from today until Sunday 23 February, so you’ll need to be quick if you want to see it.

I’ve got Watermark installed as a four channel video installation and I created Migrate: Free Movement of Workers, a drawing using rubber stamps and a projection live on Thursday night at the opening event.  Take a look at my website for more pictures from the performance and don’t forget that you can download the Drawing Project publication, which includes two essays on drawing by Sophie Preston and Lewis Cornish from the website.

The Drawing Project
Castlefield Gallery, 2 Hewitt Street, Manchester, M15 4GB
14 – 23 February 2014
Wed-Sun 1-6pm

Artists: Jenny Core, Sophia Crilly, Hondartza Fraga, Mary Griffiths, Lesley Halliwell, Jenny Steele, Claire Weetman

Reversal of flow – an intervention in Stoke on Trent

| Claire


How does the redevelopment of a place affect the flow of people within it?  What are the small changes that affect how we find our way around?  What do these changes look like?  These are the questions that arose following my exploration of Hanley town Centre, Stoke on Trent when asked to make a new intervention as part of the Small Change exhibition at airspace gallery.

‘Change in real and imagined cities’ is the focus of the exhibition, so as part of my research I walked the streets of Hanley and Stoke looking for a space that I would respond to.  I was looking for spaces where movement occurs, the traces of something that documents a change has taken place.  At the end of my first walk I came across a number of bus shelters with signs advising that the bus stop was closed.  This space, where you expect a bus to arrive that never will, intrigued me.  The building of a shiny new bus station has formed part of a programme of changes to the town centre which involves pedestrianisation of public spaces and the re-flowing of traffic through the town centre.  Stafford Street is one of the main thoroughfares in Hanley that has had it’s one way flow of traffic reversed, resulting in four bus shelters now being on the wrong side of the street and therefore out of use.  It was this simple act of reversing the flow of traffic that I decided to make a piece of work about.

I think of public spaces as potential surfaces to make a drawing on, with the lines I draw or the marks I make describing some sort of movement within that space.  I hatched a plan to mark how the movement on this street had been altered using blue arrows that referenced both the standard ‘one way’ signs and the plans issued by the City Council to communicate the re-organisation of the road network.
I laid ten 6m long lines cut from blue felt fabric along the centre of Stafford Street in Hanley, Stoke on Trent, cutting between other road markings.  Starting at the south end of the road, which has been closed at one end for public realm improvements, I placed a blue triangle on the far end of the blue line, creating an arrow pointing uphill.  Repeating this action for each of the lines resulted in a passageway of arrows all pointing north.  Passers by asked questions of my photographers, a delivery driver drove his van ever so slowly alongside the arrows taking great care not to drive over them and one man asked me where the taxi rank had moved to.  I started to notice where the previous road markings for the bus stops had been burnt and chipped away leaving a coarse road surface.  After a short pause after reaching the top of the street I removed the arrowhead from one end of the line and placed it at the other end.  Repeating this action, the flow of the drawing changed to end up with all the arrows pointing downhill.  Another short pause, then repeat; turn all the arrows to face uphill, pause, turn all the arrows to face downhill.  Then remove the arrows from the street and leave.