ARTIST STATEMENT

Overview: Energetic nature-based paintings on canvas, panel and paper.

Inspiration: I’m inspired by light (especially at dawn and in the fall) and how it creates shapes and highlights color.

How it started: I grew up in a musical household playing many instruments and singing. I loved drawing. In college I felt like a kid in a candy store, changing my major 5 times.  Eventually, to support my family, I focussed on design and had my own commercial interior design business for many years.

When I passed on my business to the next generation, time and emotional space opened in my life to pursue painting again. I feel a sense of urgency to create meaningful work that brings beauty, joy and goodness to the world.

Process: Integral to my process is spending mornings in nature, usually by myself, on trails I love.  I stop often, taking pictures and short videos of shadows, colors, a small leaf in the breeze.

Afternoons are spent in the studio. I work in oil and acrylic/mixed media on loose cavas. I’m drawn to experiment and chase the “what if’s” and seek surprise every day.

I can’t sit at a table and make art……I need to move. I keep my palette across the studio so I can stay in motion.  I move my canvas from wall to floor often. I always have music playing. Often words strung together in melody weave themselves into a painting and become part of how my work is titled.

My heart skips a beat when I see exciting interactions between colors. I love line and big smooshy marks made by dipping my tools in multiple colors at once. Lately transparent colors hold a special attraction.  I paint almost exclusively with them. I love thin glazes.

BIO

After graduating from design school and becoming a certified interior designer, Claire enjoyed a fulfilling 30+ year career as founder of a notable San Francisco Bay Area commercial design firm (RMA.studio). In 2020, she transferred her business to the next generation of partners and returned to her visual art roots, becoming a full time painter.

Claire studied with a number of internationally collected artists and focused on developing her studio practice. Most of her paintings find their roots in nature and include abstracted images from daily walks near the water, in the hills and from life on an old boat docked in Sausalito she shares with her husband.

As an emerging Bay Area artist, her piece, “Westerlies and Windy Seas” from the “Paint the Boat” series was  honored as one of 60 works selected from a field of over 5,000 entries in an international juried exhibition (2023). She has had 3 solo shows (2023, 2024 and 2025) in the SF Bay Area and participated in many juried exhibitions.

SOLO EXHIBITIONS

Studio Vittorelli, San Rafael, CA - Solo Show - December 2023

The Mill Valley Depot - October/November 2025

San Anselmo Harvest Wealth Management November-February, 2024/2025 and January-March, 2026

SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

The Sasse Museum International Juried Exhibition: “Ah Color” 2026

The Palm Gallery International Juried Exhibition “The Language of Water” 2026

Jen Tough Gallery Artist in Residency 2026

Marin Community Foundation Juried Show 2026

Sebastopol Center for the Arts International Juried Exhibition “Driven to Abstraction” 2026

“The Gallery” at BelTib Library Juried shows: “Abstracting Nature” 2025 (cover image and newspaper interview) “Art Inspired by Literature” 2025, Interpretations: “Color, Line, Form “ 2025, “"Artists’ Narratives” 2024

Marin Society of Artists Juried Exhibition “Artists’ Vision” 2025

Conversations with Artists: The Language of Abstraction 2025

Conversations with Artists: Spaces and Places 2025

Conversations with Artists: Artist interview 2025

Arts Guild of Sonoma “Past Present Future” Juried Show: January 2025

Healdsburg Center for the Arts “Kaleidoscope” Show: January 2024

Arts Guild of Sonoma “Glimpse” Juried Show: January 2024

Arts Benicia “Art of a Community”: January 2024

Graton Gallery Creatives by the Bay Group Show: February 2024

Marin Open Studios “Creatives by the Bay” group show: 2024, 2025, 2026

Marin Art and Garden Center Harvest Show: November 2024

AWARDS

International Juried Exhibition Art2Life - September 2023