CLAIRE CURNEEN

CURRENT + RECENT EXHIBITIONS

EXPOSED: Heads, Busts & Nudes

EXPOSED: Heads, Busts & Nudes group show of ceramic figural sculpture by masters 1965–present originally presented at 1315 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams, MA, from June 18 to September 5, 2016...

VIEW

SELECT PAST EXHIBITIONS

• NEW BLUE AND WHITE
• AT YOUR SERVICE: Exploring the Plate as a Site for Cultural Exploration
• NEW YORK CERAMICS & GLASS FAIR 2015
• THE WOMEN
• STRIKING GOLD: Fuller at Fifty, Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, MA

As one of the UK’s foremost ceramicists Claire Curneen’s work is distinct for its figuration. She is also a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Ceramic Studies, Cardiff Metropolitan University.

Spanning nearly 20 years as a practicing artist, Curneen’s works, ranging from small scale porcelain pieces to a large terracotta figure installed on the exterior of a Guildhall, explore grand themes about the body and the human condition.

Notable for her application of hand-building, pinching and applying clay in patches that registers the artist’s hand and flesh in the surface of the clay, Curneen produces highly visceral works, which tap into of our deepest desires, fears and mysteries. Referencing Roman Catholic imagery and ideology and early Italian Renaissance paintings such as Piero Della Francesca’s ‘Baptism of Christ’, these figures bear bold narratives of saints, martyrs and rites of passage punctuated by often delicate yet dramatic totems to death, re-birth and the sublime.

In 2011 Curneen received one of the Arts Council of Wales’s most prestigious accolades, a Creative Wales Ambassador Award, and has embarked upon a new body of work inspired by research she will be conducting into the National Museum of Ireland’s collections. Her award also includes use of a drawing studio at The Mission Gallery, Swansea.

Curneen’s work can be seen in over 20 public collections, including the Victoria & Albert Museum, London; National Museums and Galleries of Wales, Cardiff; Taipei Ceramics Museum, Taiwan and the Crafts Council, London.

Videos about the artist talking about her work can be seen on her website here.

www.clairecurneen.com

CURRENT PROJECT

‘Guardian’ 2012, Porcelain, cobalt, glaze, gold lustre

The title for this piece extends my ongoing interest into religious iconography of Italian Renaissance Painting, in particular ‘Tobias and the Angel’ 1470-1475 by Verrocchio. The story explains how the young Tobias, sets out on a long journey to recover a debt for his blind father,  he meets another traveller, the Archangel Rapheal, who guides him and protects him. Guardian explores some of these themes focusing on the intimacy of the relationship.  The figure is printed with rich cobalt blue, like chinese blue and white porcelain, which communicates the historical imprint in which a ceramic object can hold,  charged with a sense of its own history.  Like ‘Tobias and the Angel’ it is witness to the changing world. This figure stands looking forward, it holds back a part of itself in order to act as a guardian, a protector, potent and rich in meaning.

Bio
Born: 1968, Ireland

Education

1999-92
University of Wales Institute Cardiff, Master’s Degree in Ceramics

1986-90
Crawford College of Art & Design, Cork, Ireland, Diploma in Art and Design

1990-91
University of Ulster, Belfast, Postgraduate Diploma in Applied Arts

Upcoming, Current & Recent Exhibitions

2016
EXPOSED: Heads, Busts, Nudes, Ferrin Contemporary, North Adams, MA
Bernadaud: My Blue China, Ariana Museum, Geneva, Switzerland
2015
To This I Put My Name, Hans Peter Dähler, Solothurn, Switzerland
2014
To This I Put My Name, Ruthin Craft Center, Ruthin, Denbighshire, Wales and Harley Gallery, Notinghamshire, England
2013
New Blue and White, Museum of Fine Art, Boston, USA

Public Collections

Ulster Museum, Belfast

Crawford Municipal Art Gallery, Cork, Ireland

Crafts Council, London

Limerick City Art Gallery, Limerick, Ireland

National Museums and Galleries of Wales, Cardiff, UK

Sara and David Lieberman Collection, Arizona State University, USA.

Victoria and Albert Museum, London

Shipely Art Gallery, Tyne & Wear Museums, Gateshead, UK

Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK

Benaki Museum, Athens, Greece

Aberystwyth Arts Centre. Wales, UK

Cleveland Crafts Centre, Middlesbrough, UK

Icheon World Ceramic Centre, Korea

National Museum of Scotland

Oldham Museum, Manchester, UK

York Museum, England, UK

Taipei Ceramics Museum, Taiwan

Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art, UK

Mint Museum, Charlotte, Carolina, USA

Kennedy Museum of Art, USA

Past Exhibitions

2012

Never Never, Aberystwyth Arts Centre

Reflection, Galerie Kunstforum Solothurn, Switzerland

New World: Timeless Vision,  IAC exhibition, New Mexico Museum of Art, USA

2011

Beaux Arts, Bath (solo)

Placement, Ceramic Connections Wales/Scotland, Oriel Davies, Mid Wales

Lost Certainty, Claire Curneen and Alice Kettle, CAA, London

3×2: The Shed, Galway, Ireland

2010

Pretty young Things, Lacoste Gallery, Boston, USA

Claire Curneen and Olivia Chargue, Le Don du Fel, France

Passage, Craft in the Bay, Cardiff, Wales

Parings, a collaboration with textile designer Alison Welsh, MMU Manchester

Contemporary British Studio Ceramics, The Grainer Collection, Mint Museum, Charlotte, USA

2009

British Ceramics,  Bavarian Crafts Council, Germany

Otherworldly Messages, Galerie Marianne Heller, Germany

Collect, Saatchi Galleries, CAA London

2008

Myths and Legends, Contemporary Applied Arts, London

Claire Curneen, Ruthin Craft Centre, Wales (solo, catalogue)

2007

Secondary Relics, Blackswan Gallery, Frome, England

Menschenbild, Galerie Kunstforum, Solothurn, Switzerland

2006

Collect at the V&A, Ruthin Craft Centre.

One Piece one Artist, Galerie Marianne Heller, Germany

Narratives Glynn Vivian Gallery, Swansea.

Collecting Contemporary Ceramics, Ruthin Craft Centre, Wales

The Human Condition, the Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh

Figurative Ceramics, Cervini Haas Gallery, Scottsdale, USA

2005

Showcase at Manchester Art Gallery (DVD,catalogue and slide set)

The  International Art & Design Fair, New York, represented by Adrian Sassoon

2004

Succour- Claire Curneen, The Gallery, Ruthin Craft Centre (solo, catalogue)

Faith, Nottingham Castle Museum (catalogue)

Collect at the V&A, represented by CAA London

SOFA Chicago, represented by CLAY, LA

2003

Flower Power, Norfolk Museum and Archaeology Service and Sheffield     Galleries and Museum Trust (catalogue)

Telltale, Narratives in Contemporary Craft, Shipley Art Gallery, Gateshead (catalogue)

Augenblicken, Kunstforum Kirchberg, Switzerland

2002

Claire Curneen and Heather Belcher, Contemporary Applied Arts, London

SOFA Chicago, USA

2001

Figurative Ceramics, Crafts Council shop at The V&A, London

2000

Made at the Clay Studio, The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, PA

Figurative Ceramics, Nancy Margolis Gallery, NewYork.

1999

New Masters Old Masters, Oxford Gallery, Oxford.

Firing Imagination, British Council Exhibition, Sao Paulo (catalogue)

1998

Ceramic Series/Claire Curneen, Aberystwyth Arts Centre, (catalogue)

1997

New Work, Claire Curneen, Ruthin Craft Centre, Wales (solo, catalogue)

1996

Philip Eglin and Claire Curneen, Contemporary Applied Arts, London

Awards and Competitions

2012

Creative Wales Ambassador Award.  ‘The Museum Object as a point of Reference’.

2008

Taiwan International Ceramics Biennale Competition, Taipei Ceramic Museum.

2005

Creative Wales Award, Arts Council of Wales

Selected for 3rd World Ceramic Biennale, Korea International Competition

2004

Selected for 1st European Ceramics Competition, Greece.

2003

Shortlist for the Arts Foundation Award for Ceramics, U.K.

2001

National Eisteddfod of Wales, Gold Medal in Craft & Design

2001

Le Prix de I’AMN, Porcelain Triennale, Nyon

Selected for the 52nd International Competition for Contemporary Ceramic Art,  Faenza, Italy

1999

Ceramics Monthly Magazine, Winner of the Sculpture category

1995

Crafts Council Setting up grant

Professional Memberships

Selected Makers slide index, Crafts Council, London

Contemporary Applied Arts

International Academy of Ceramics, Geneva

Periodicals

Ceramics Arts and Perception, review of “Pretty Young Things”, Lacoste Gallery, Massachusetts by Christine Temin, 2011

Ceramics Arts and Perception, article by Alex McErlain, Issue 62, 2005/2006

New Ceramics, Issue 5, 2005, profile on Claire Curneen by Amanda Fielding (German & English)

Keramik Magazin, Issue 4, 2003, “Contemplation”, by Ian Wilson

Kerameiki Techni, Issue 42, 2002, “The Role of Narrative in Claire Curneen’s Ceramics” by Natasha Mayo.

Ceramic Review, Issue 195, 2002, “A Melancholy Beauty”, by Nicolas Lees

Ceramics Art and Perception, Issue 38 1999, “Searching for Answers”, by Sarah James

Ceramic Monthly, International Competition, 1999

Books

2010

Contemporary British Studio Ceramics, Yale Unversity Press, New Haven and London with the Mint Museum of Craft + Design, North Carolina

‘Pairings’, Monologues & Dialogues, MMU.

Fanning, Micheal. Ghost Trawler, a poetry book.  The publication is a collaboration between artists and the poet.  Published by Sommerville Press, Ireland.

2009

Whiting, David. Modern British Studio Ceramics and their Studios, photography Jay Goldmark.

Cooper, Emmanuel. ‘Contemporary Ceramics’ A Global Survey of Trends and Traditions, Thames and Hudson,

Breaking the Mould, Black Dog Publishing, UK

Masters in Porcelain, Lark Books, USA

Schwartz, Judith. Confrontational Ceramics, USA

Ming, Bai. World Famous Ceramic Artist Studios, (Volume 1, Europe)

2004

500 Figures in Clay, Lark Books, USA

2002

Flynn, Michael. Ceramic Figures. A&C Black Ltd.

Waller, Jane. The Human Form in Clay, Crowood Press Ltd.

2001

Blandino, Betty. The Figure in Fired Clay, A&C Black Ltd.

Residencies

2000

The Clay Studio, Philadelphia, USA

Crawford Arts Centre, St.Andrews, Scotland, funded by Artworks Wales.

Television and Radio

‘Kaleidoscope’  BBC Radio 4, 1997, review of Ruthin exhibition by Emanuel Cooper

‘The Art’.   BBC 2, short film of artist at work.

Lecturing

Senior Lecturer, Centre for Ceramic Studies, Cardiff Metropolitian University