My paintings are centered around explorations of the natural world. My subjects shift between straightforward representations of botanical collections and domestic gardens into an abstract language that seeks to replicate the unruly bounty of plants. These plants are all cultivated by humans: carefully tended to in orchards, archived in greenhouses and adopted into homes. In all of these spaces, specimens that would never meet in the wild commingle in manmade corrals. Viewed either as aesthetic adornments or utilitarian (but bountiful) agriculture sites, gardens are often associated with the feminine. This dual identity of the beautiful and the functional is central to the paintings themselves: the rigid grids of the greenhouse contrast with crowded, unusual plant forms. The abstract passages in these works hint at explorations of the elemental and mystical qualities of paint- its ability to mimic and its material allure often fighting each other, occasionally coalescing in harmony.
Claire Elliott is a painter who lives and works in Portland, OR. She received her MFA from The School of the Museum of Fine Arts at Tufts University in 2014 and is a member of Wave Contemporary.