Clementine Eastwood
Degree: BA Fine Art painting
University: Brighton University
Graduation Year: 2022
New Blood Art Commentary
Clementine Eastwood’s textile hangings are deftly woven iconographies, with religious symbolism deployed by the artist casting an eye over the history of depictions of women. She renders them with new colour and dynamism: the shapes fluid and acute. “Tufted yarn through monks cloth on stained wood bedazzled with pearls” reads one of the accounts of materials used, which is suggestive of the descriptive potency of these works. They are fairly large-scale, magnificent on the wall: but vital, good humoured, and in this way accessible for the modern viewer.
With yellow flowers and blue and red
That shine so bright in sun's clear ray
So goes the famous mediaeval poem ‘Pearl’. Some of Clementine's hangings look like portals. These are the more abstract ones, gesturing to rarefied states of being: the experience of transportation so exquisitely rendered by mediaeval poets, mystics, artists and nuns. The lives of the saints are often meant to act as illuminating mirrors. In these wall hangings duality is expressed by symmetry; the iconography of the faces is familiar as well as heroic. From Faith Ringgold to Grayson Perry, contemporary artists are doing thrilling things with textiles. Clementine’s startling forms and searing colours make for bold and skilled interventions.
Artist Statement
My name is Clementine Eastwood, I graduated from my Fine Art Painting degree at Brighton University with first class honours in 2022 and I have been working from Brighton ever since.
My tufted pieces, explore themes such as the female subjectivity, experience and body. My focus is to challenge the portrayal of women in religious art, especially religious female icons such as the Madonna. I want to express my response to this symbolic imagery; I aim to shed a different light on the representation of women by taking the iconical portrayals of women as symbols, heroines, martyrs, Olympias or Odalisques and communicating their suffering and injustice they have endured over centuries.
The pieces are highly inspired by medieval tapestries, paintings and also creatures. My “Slay your dragon” series represents my personal stages of healing from my past traumas and my journey of becoming an adult. By employing a bold, sickly, unconventional colour palette it could be related to dissociation.
“ A mental process of disconnecting from one's thoughts, feelings, memories or sense of identity, you feel disconnected from yourself and the world around you.”
I additionally investigate duality in my practice as I believe there are always two versions, in human beings and in the universe. Metaphorically speaking, there's a duality in everything. Peace and war, love and hate, up and down, and black and white.The idea that every single human being has good and evil within them.I strive to transfer a feeling of unknown, unfamiliarity to the viewer. There is a hidden library of symbols within our subconscious, I display mine.
My art practice has a strong focus on the act of making, my medium is called “Tufting”; A modern form of rug making, tapestry embroidery, by employing an electric tufting gun. I use yarn as my paint and my gun as my paint brush, moving away from the conventional form of painting. By using a gun, a more masculine tool, I convey female expression, and I explore my own identity as a woman in modern times. Just like these symbols I break down the male gaze, I reclaim them and celebrate them.
Solo Exhibitions
(2023) "Playing with fire", Gallery 19a, Brighton Hollingdean Terrace
(2021) My solo exhibition, La Galerie du Chanvre, France, Tours
Group Exhibitions
(2023) Handbags and abstract piece, Io gallery, Brighton
(2023) Parallax Art Fair, Kensington Town Hall, London
(2022) Degree Show Exhibition, Brighton university, Brighton
(2022) The Spirit of Xmas, HM Electric, London, Nothing Hill