Claire Layman grew up on a farm in Western Australia. She left Perth in 1985 and travelled around the United States, Canada, Britain, France and Switzerland until 1990, working as a cocktail waitress, laboratory assistant, language transcriber, recreation officer and grape picker. The first public display of Claire’s art was through a gallery in Chapel Street (Melbourne) in 2004. Her work began selling immediately. Her paintings have been purchased by collectors from Sydney, New York, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Thailand, Fiji, London, and many other places around the world.
Her paintings are unique because they combine vibrant, new abstract forms with materials usually found in sculptures – clays, thick acrylics and resins – giving them depth and remarkable texture. She strives to make her paintings complex enough to be intriguing, using designs that are simple enough to be striking. The paintings are evocative, almost architectural, providing an innovative deconstruction of Australian landscapes and people. She leads the new movement in painting in resins, paints and inks, specializing in multilayered works and translucent paints. She continues to experiment, sometimes looking like Hokusai finally breaking free of his bonds, sometimes like a wayward botanical artist, and sometimes like an inspired Sidney Nolan.
Education
1983. Diploma in Photography, Mt Lawley College, Perth. 1983.
Exhibitions
1983. Claire Layman, Clark Baker and Pat McCarthy. Emerging works. Photographs in colour and black and white. Abstracts and landscapes. Nedlands, Western Australia.
1992. Claire Layman, Pat Layman and Terri Layman. Pate and Claret. The Residency, October, Alice Springs. Sculptures, paintings on textiles, clothes and hand-made puppets.
1994. Terri Layman and Claire Layman. Alice Springs Craft Acquisition Exhibition. Textiles.
1995- 2004. Terri Layman and Claire Layman. Claret Design. Corkwood Festival. November, Alice Springs.
2005. Claire Layman, Frieda Grinn and John Quinlan. Affordable Art, Melbourne.
2005. Claire Layman, Terri Layman and Frieda Grinn. Art in 2½ dimensions: almost-3-dimensional art on canvas and leather. Eckersley’s Art Gallery. Melbourne.
2006. Claire Layman, Terri Layman and Freida Grinn. Affordable Art, Melbourne
2007. Claire Layman, Terri Layman and Dan Murphy. Art Melbourne.
2009-2011 Claire Layman, Art Sydney, Sydney.
2010 Claire Layman Fire and Ice Fusion, Mandurah, WA
2010 Claire Layman 2.5 Dimensions Parap Village, Darwin
2011 Claire Layman Happy Shiny People Fusion, Mandurah, WA
2011 Claire Layman Fluid Dimensions Butler Goode Gallery Sydney NSW
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