Clair Partington’s art has been shown at the Seattle Art Museum, Kunstmuseum Bochum, Musée Ariana, Geneva (Bernardaud Foundation) and Halle Saint Pierre, Paris.
Her work is also in private collections worldwide including the Reydan Weiss Collection and 21C Museum.
Partingtons' work generally deals with narrative, symbolism, gender and status. Her interest lies in symbols and how people use them to identify with certain social groups. Her work also deals with the long European tradition of appropriation and reinterpretation of design styles, fashions and cultures.
Most of her big ceramic sculptures are made in earthenware, and now and then stoneware and porcelain. The pieces are all built from the base up as hollow vessels using coils of clay (like sausages). The coils are smoothed together and shape the figure as it is being built upwards. The pieces are refined and sculpted and then added with sprigged decoration, which is clay pushed into plaster moulds made from things like jewellery or toys – like the raised decoration you get on Wedgwood vases. The pieces are fired, glazed and then with use of digital enamel transfers or paint onto the surface with enamels and metal lustres. In total, the process can take up to four months, but Partington has a number of figures in production at the same time.
Claire Partington graduated from Central Saint Martins in 1995 with a 1st in Fine Art Sculpture. She went on to work within some of the Museums and Galleries that had initially fired her enthusiasm for Art and Craft (most notably the V&A) and continued her post graduate education in Museum Studies.
In 2003 she resumed making. This time concentrating on ceramics, attendeding Kensington and Chelsea College evening classes from 2003-2008 and started to produce work drawing on influences gained from a non-Craft education and a wealth of vocational experience working with National Collections. She lives and works in London.
Opgenomen in onder andere de keramiek collectie van Victoria and Albert Museum - London, Seattle Art Museum - Usa en samenwerking met The National Gallery - London winning the Virginia Groot Foundation Grant 1st prize in 2018