Claire Curneen | 19 Nov – 8 January 2012

Claire Curneen is one of Britain’s foremost figurative ceramicists, renowned for the haunting, emotive porcelain figures that she has been making for over 10 years. Fascinated by the human body, she explores themes of human alienation, femininity and the combination of bodily flesh and spiritual existence. Her making technique, a kind of porcelain patchwork, results in figures that are covered in handprints and shallow lines like contours or scars. These naked figures have extraordinary presence, awkward and vulnerable yet also self-contained and inscrutable. ‘Daphne’. The subject draws on the story of Apollo and Daphne. In the painting by Antonio del Pollaiuolo the Greek God pursues Daphne, she is grabbed by Apollo, he persists in having her but she prays to the Gods to help her and she is turned into a tree, her arms shoot upwards and become strong branches which towers over Apollo. Curneen’s interpretation show the porcelain figure is in a state of change, the branches engulf her and they are topped with gold suggesting the delight in her fate.
Mission Gallery Gloucester Place Maritime Quarter Swansea SA1 1TY t 01792 652016 f 01792 652016 e [email protected] w missiongallery.co.uk