Art Matters, 30 Sept, 3MDR 97.1FM
Tune into Claire’s interview with Sal on Art Matters, as they discuss Claire’s art practice and current exhibition at Kingston Arts Centre, The Water Carriers: Trans-formations.
The Water Carriers: Trans-formations at Kingston Arts Centre
Image: Claire Bridge, The Water Carriers: Trans-formations, 2024, Kingston Arts Centre, installation view, photo Simon Strong
CLAIRE BRIDGE
The Water Carriers: Trans-formations
Kingston Arts Centre
G2 Gallery
Friday 19 September
to Saturday 1 November 2025
The Water Carriers: Trans-formations explores connections between women, water, and reimagined myths in an exhibition of new sculptural ceramics by Claire Bridge.
Reframing the myth of Daphne, Bridge considers hybridity, adaptation, and queering of human and non-human relationships as strategies for survival and trans-formation. Daphne’s metamorphosis into a laurel tree and escape from Apollo’s relentless pursuit - becomes an act of ecological queerness and biophilic inter-being, challenging extractive, patriarchal narratives.
Women’s bodies, labour, and lives are commodified and disproportionately impacted by climate change and water scarcity. ‘The Water Carriers’ reflects on our environmental relationships and envisions possibilities for ecological renewal.
Kingston Arts Centre
G2 Gallery
979-985 Nepean Hwy
Moorabbin
Opening Hours: 11am – 4pm
Wednesday to Saturday
Public programs
Auslan tour
Saturday October 4th: 10:30 - 10:50am, Auslan tour for Deaf and Auslan users only, by the artist Claire Bridge in Auslan
Artist and Curator talk
Saturday October 4th: 11:00 - 11:50am, Artist and Curator talk, Claire Bridge and Jessica Row in conversation followed by Q and A. For hearing and Deaf audiences. Auslan/English Interpreted event
Greg Natale features Claire Bridge in The Patterned Interior
Designer Greg Natale features Claire Bridge in interior design book The Patterned Interior
A series of paintings by Claire Bridge styled by Greg Natale for the Newtown House.
Eight lush gestural oil paintings by Claire Bridge from the series Future Memory, framed in white, add sensuous colour to this duck egg blue room in the Newtown House. With subtle hints of landscape, reflecting lakes and rolling hills, these painting bring bold vibrancy, combined with misty natural tones complement Natale’s signature dynamic black and white patterns.
At once sophisticated and full of robust character, Greg Natale’s interiors are renowned around the world for creating environments that traverse serenity and flamboyance. By studying a project from the broadest point of view down to its smallest detail, Natale successfully transforms any space – deftly marrying contemporary accents with vintage pieces through his signature interplay of pattern and design.
THE PATTERNED INTERIOR
By Greg Natale
Foreword by Martyn Lawrence Bullard
ISBN: 978-0-8478-6283-2 Rizzoli New York September 2018
View more here
image: Claire Bridge, Future Memory Series, oil on paper, framed, photo by Anson Smart
Magnify AIR Artists Exhibition, Talk and Tour
Magnify AIR Artists Exhibition, Talk and Tour
Daril Atkins, Claire Bridge, Timothee Chalazonits, Jayne McSwiney, Lori Hakim, Laura Roos, Merel MAY Tieland, Andreea-Monica Sfarlea, Surya David White, Belinda Wilson, Amy Lees-Doherty
Wednesday 13 November – Saturday 14 December 2024
13 November - 14 December
Kingston Arts Centre
G1 Gallery, Kingston Arts Centre
979-985 Nepean Hwy, Moorabbin
Opening Hours:
11am – 4pm
Wednesday to Saturday
Please join me for a studio visit and an informal artist talk on
Saturday 23rd Nov
English 11.30 am - 12.15 pm
Auslan 12.15 - 1 pm
Kingston Arts Centre
G2 Gallery, Kingston Arts Centre
979-985 Nepean Hwy, Moorabbin
image: Claire Bridge, We must risk new shapes, 2023, glazed stoneware ceramic, 37.8 x 31 x 26.5cm
Magnify Artist Residency 2024-2025
Claire Bridge has been awarded the Magnify Artist Residency.
During this residency spanning 2024 to 2025, Claire will be developing new ceramics sculptures and paintings in the light filled expansive studios and purpose built ceramics room equipped with kiln at Kingston Arts Centre.
Thanks to Kingston Arts for this wonderful support and the opportunity to take on new challenges, experiment and make new works!
“I am thrilled to have the opportunity to create exciting new ceramic works and especially grateful for the support of Kingston Arts to develop and expand my practice” ~ Claire Bridge
image: light filled studio space on day 1 of the artist residency with a clay sculpture in progress.
Omnia Art Prize 2024 Finalist
Claire Bridge is a finalist in the Omnia Art Prize, one of Australia’s premier awards for contemporary art.
This prestigious $15,000 annual prize is open to established and emerging Australian contemporary artists, with all exhibited artworks for sale. Vibrant, culturally-rich and thought-provoking, the hundreds of artworks on display reflect the best of Australian contemporary art across mediums from oils, acrylics, drawing, photograph, mixed media to small sculptures.
The exhibition is open
25-26 May
KC Smith Hall,
St Kevin’s College
This year’s prize will be judged by curator, writer and lecturer, Dr Rebecca Coates, Director of Monash University Museum of Art (MUMA)
image: Claire Bridge, The Unfolding, 2022, glazed stoneware ceramic, 16 x 49 x 49cm, Photo SimonStrong
Art work acquisition announcement 2024
Claire Bridge's sculpture, Grenade, has been acquired by the Maroondah City Art Collection as a Mayoral Acquisition from over 180 works in the 29th Mayoral Art Exhibition.
"I am delighted that my sculpture Grenade has been chosen by the Mayor, Cr Kylie Spears, for a Mayoral Acquisition. Employing humour and satire, Grenade speaks to the important and serious issues of gender, violence, and objectification of women. With an oversized metal ring piercing an ambiguous breast-like form, the sculpture morphs into a grenade, both as an expression of the volatile dangers faced by Queer, Disabled and female bodies, and as a celebration of the dynamic force of our creativity and resilience.
I am honoured that this piece, which addresses issues impacting far too many of us in contemporary society, will now be part of the Maroondah City Art Collection. I am grateful my work can contribute to these important conversations as we move towards creating safer communities and a more equitable, just, and inclusive society.”
~ Claire Bridge
image: Claire Bridge, Grenade, 2018, glazed stoneware ceramic, nickel plated steel, rubber, enamel, approx 15 x 21 x 33 cm, photo by Jeremy Blincoe
Beechworth Biennale 2024
CLAIRE BRIDGE, ACEPHALOUS
Beechworth Biennale 2024
8 - 12 March 2024
Come. Meet the Oracle.
The Oracle speaks, yet her meaning may seem hidden.
Listen. Can you sense it?
Entering trance, the Oracle reveals her wisdom. She does not give of her secrets easily.
Drink of the cup
Sway
Breathe
Slow
When stillness arises, the words of the Oracle appear, cast upon the waves of your breath,
pulsing to the rhythms of your heart. Listen.
Composed of over one thousand hand-pressed ceramic pieces, woven together with copper wire, Acephalous explores the body as personal, collective, communal, and divine. Hand-pressed, each ceramic scale is imprinted with the artist’s palm. A thousand hands invoke the deities of a thousand arms and innumerable beings contained therein. Ruptured pieces bear wounds, scars, and histories, and in their traced lines, new futures are destined and divined.
Forming a serpentine skin, the body which was torn apart is rewoven, repaired as a communal and collective being. In some Indian, Celtic and European traditions, the severed head holds oracular power, a symbolic seat of the soul and of the divine. Acephalous embodies this oracular potency and symbolism. In a parallel reading Acephalous means “headless state” and considers the possibilities of collective agency and a kaleidoscopic reimagining of contemporary society.
video: Claire Bridge, Acephelous, 2021 - 2024, single channel video with audio, 6 minute loop, mapped video projection onto over 1000 ceramic scales, coral, copper, steel, Beechworth Biennale Installation view, 250 x 200 x 150 cm dimensions variable
Site 13: The Stage, Hotel Nicholas, cnr Camp and High St
2024 Darebin Art Prize, Finalist
Claire Bridge is a finalist in the 2024 Darebin Art Prize.
The Darebin Art Prize is an acquisitive prize of $10,000 awarded to the winner.
A People's Choice Prize of $1000 is also awarded and depends on your votes.
Finalists Exhibition
10 Jan 24 - 23 Mar 24
Bundoora Homestead Arts Centre
7 Prospect Hill Dr, Bundoora 3083
image: Claire Bridge, We must risk new shapes, 2023, hand-built, glazed stoneware ceramic, 37.8cm x 31cm x 26.5cm, showing now in the Darebin Art Prize 2024
Enquiries
We must risk new shapes draws its title from Sophie Strand’s eponymous essay and offers a speculative new god for these times of ecological crisis and upheaval.
The sculpture’s silhouette suggests a seated buddha, referencing the dissolution of a siloed self. The work challenges notions of individualism and the cultural and ecological crises of anthropocentric capitalism.
We must risk new shapes decenters the human, proposing a polyamorous communion of oceanic beings and hybrid lichenised fusions. The three segments of the base - body and head - come together in a communal multifaceted whole. It presents its own complex, diverse, and interconnected ecosystem. We must risk new shapes imagines an alternative collaborative vision for our shared futures. ~ Claire Bridge
OLSEN GALLERY ~ 30 Year Celebration
30 YEAR CELEBRATION
OLSEN GALLERY
19 December 2023 - 30 January 2024
OLSEN GALLERY AND OLSEN ANNEXE
View Exhibition
To enquire about available works
Email:info@olsengallery.com
Call: (02)9327 3922
images above: Claire Bridge, Thousand Petal Lotus, s2022, glazed stoneware ceramic, 14 x 26 x 25 cm, Photos by Simon Strong
Claire Bridge, Poet on the Moon
Not only are her paintings going to the Moon, a poem by Claire Bridge has also been selected to be sent to the Moon for posterity.
Published in January of 2023, The Polaris Trilogy has been compiled as a gift to the Moon by its three editors: Joyce Brinkman, Dr. Joe Heithaus, and Jessica Reed. This anthology will be available to those who visit the Moon for millions of years to come. It will arrive on a NASA flight and become part of the Lunar Codex at the Moon’s South Pole. Adjunct Professor Jessica Reed of Butler University (Indianapolis, Indiana), who teaches a course in “Physics and the Arts,” selected Bridge’s work for the anthology.
Three distinct sections present poetry from every continent on Earth in the native languages of Earth’s poets. Each section’s poems are inspired by that section’s set of three words that reflect the Earth’s history and habitats while they reveal elemens of Earth’s culture and life forms.
Bridge’s poem ‘Safe Words’ includes the themes of Ice, Wind and Fire and contemplates the nature of violence and power.
CHIMERA, solo exhibition by Claire Bridge, Nov 2022
CHIMERA, solo exhibition by Claire Bridge
opens November 17, 2-5pm
82A Wellington St Collingwood, VIC
Claire Bridge Melbourne Now 2023 Artist
Claire Bridge announced as participating artist in Melbourne Now 2023.
Celebrating new and ambitious local art and design, Melbourne Now will cross a range of contemporary disciplines including fashion and jewellery, painting, sculpture, architecture, ceramics, video, performance, printmaking and publishing.
Bold in scale, Melbourne Now will be displayed throughout all levels of The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, including permanent collection galleries, showcasing new works and commissions by emerging, mid-career and senior practitioners as well as local collectives.
The inaugural 2013 exhibition was an unprecedented survey of some of the most exciting local contemporary practitioners. Ten years on, Melbourne Now 2023 will again highlight the latest art, architecture, design, and cultural practice shaping Melbourne.
The exhibition will also mark the second edition of the hugely popular ‘Design Wall’ showcasing work by dozens of the city’s most innovative design practitioners, as well as popular NGV Kids interactive projects.
images above: Melbourne Now 2023 artists and designers at the announcement event on 18 October. Melbourne Now 2023 will open on 24 March 2023 at The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia. Photos: Eugene Hyland
Alter State - Claire Bridge and Chelle Destefano Arts Centre Melbourne
Alter State - Claire Bridge and Chelle Destefano Arts Centre Melbourne
Arts Centre Melbourne and Arts Access Victoria present
CheckPoint at Alter State
Arts Centre Melbourne
WED 5th October
12pm – 1pm
In conversation with the artists, discover this collaboration of over seventy Deaf and hearing allies in which strategies of truth-telling, provocation and self-representation challenge audist colonisation of Deaf lives, bodies, language and knowledges.
We call it 'Trouble Making' :)
Auslan / English Interpreters
View the Talk here
What I Wish I'd Told You at ArtSpace at Realm in Ringwood, 1st Oct - 20th Nov, 2022
What I Wish I'd Told You is supported by the West Space/FCAC Commission 2022
and
Australia Council for the Arts
Creative Victoria
Regional Arts Victoria
City of Melbourne Arts Grants
Maroondah Arts and Culture Grant
Hyphen-Wodonga Commission
The Victorian College of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at the University of Melbourne
What I Wish I'd Told You, ArtSpace Realm, 1st Oct - Nov 20th
Auslan storytellers affirm Deaf experiences and diverse, complex identities, in an immersive exhibition of large-scale video projections, which bring visitors into a Deaf world. In this collaboration of over seventy Deaf and hearing allies, empowered Deaf storytellers draw on decolonising strategies of truth-telling, provocation, and self-representation, to challenge audist colonisation of Deaf lives, bodies, language and knowledges.
“In Auslan, we pass stories from hand to hand. Our stories cannot be put on a page, detached from us. When we tell stories through sign language, our whole body, mind, emotion, and inner self is also expressed. Our signed stories carry culture. They are a site of resistance and pride.” – Chelle Destefano.
Shared with humour, wit, courage, and care, What I Wish I’d Told You transforms the Art Space into a Deaf space and Deaf Cultural experience.
What I Wish I’d Told You is supported by the Victorian College of the Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at the University of Melbourne, Australia Council, Creative Victoria, Regional Arts Victoria, City of Melbourne, the West Space/ Footscray Community Arts Commission, Hyphen Wodonga Commission and the Maroondah Arts and Culture Grant.
Printed catalogue available. Request a catalogue
image: Claire Bridge and Chelle Destefano, Lost, with Ida Rogers, in What I Wish I’d Told You, 2022, installation view, ArtSpace at Realm