Thanks to independent gallerist Jonathan Ross, a leading feminist artist has been ‘uncancelled’. In an upcoming show, ceramicist Claudia Clare duets with painter Frances Aviva Blane in his Earls Court space.
The two couldn’t be more different. Clare tells stories on pots while Blane makes abstract works which stretch the figurative beyond its limits. But it’s only two years since they showed together at the Zuleika gallery in London Mayfair.
Story-telling on vases has a long history, from the ancient Greeks to Grayson Perry, and Clare gives her ceramic ware a feminist twist. Using equally traditional media, Blane deploys oil paint and charcoal eschewing any overt narrative. And yet these two unexpectedly enhance one another to form a mutually beneficial and rich relationship. Each in her own way tells it how it is.
Psychotherapist Susie Orbach notes that Blane “enables us to see and when we can dare to hold the gaze we read aspects of the human condition which lie outside the polite”.* The same could be said about Claudia Clare. Frances’ faces can be the stuff of nightmares, while the stories on Clare’s pots reveal the shattering effects of prostitution. Nothing if not outspoken, they both explore the breakdown of the human personality, but also how it can be mended and restored.
This is explicit in Brave Face in which Clare shattered a pot, only to piece it back together again (as she did with her 2020 Brexit Pot). Reminiscent of the philosophy of kintsugi (golden repair) the Japanese art of mending breakage, this technique makes you aware that vicissitudes are part of life. Clare helps us celebrate the inner strength involved in overcoming them as integral to her new whole, a rainbow of jades and aqua blues merging with pinks, browns and oranges.
Claudia Clare Circus Acts 
Clare describes her pot called Circus Acts as “an allegory on the Gender Circus as a whole”. Reminiscent of Goya’s Caprichos, it has nightmarish and dreamlike qualities as dunces and clowns, a flying trapeze, precarious balancing acts, the figure of Britannia, and a leering lynch mob float around the pot. Goya’s dreams and nightmares are indeed relevant to a time of political turmoil, dictatorial rule and the horrors of war.
Perhaps Clare’s most harmonious vase is Intimacy Restored which depicts women surrounded by blossoming blue skies and meadows, reading or sitting together peacefully. The broken have become whole, thanks to the healing power of human companionship.
In sharp contrast to Clare, Blane’s large canvases are story-free. They allow us to appreciate the unique qualities of paint and colour laid on thickly or in shadowy softness, manipulated, scarred and scraped to reveal hidden depths. The deep red Letter and Blue are liberated from all descriptive properties, encouraging our eyes and thoughts to float free and roam. It’s as if the chalky jagged lightning bolts in Blue are an inspirational impulse flashing through our minds.
Blane’s heads with their anguished looks are the stuff of nightmares. Yellow Head reminds me of Picasso’s Crying Woman with her multiple perspectives, blacks and whites against the red and orange background. Where Picasso’s woman is constructed from jagged points and planes, Blane’s is a blurred frenzy of thick smears of raw emotion let loose. And Picasso’s sense of nausea re-emerges in the sickly green of Orange Head which looks directly at us, confused and distressed.
Using paper as a medium Blane exploits spontaneous accidents in a more intimate way. In Portrait of S, blood red smudges and hangs over a sea of mustard yellow, colours you might think would simply clash. But as always in Blane’s work, the human touch is ever present. Out of something that is potentially just a mess, a broken soul crying out in anguish reaches out for connection.
A gallerist with a view
Fired is the latest in gallerist Jonathan Ross’ fascinating mix of shows. He has an unorthodox approach to life and art, welcoming a diverse range of artists to the restored Victorian terrace house that he shares with sculptor/garden designer Camilla Shivarg. As well as hosting contemporary makers, Ross has a unique hologram collection and features artists who work in this unusual medium.
Sensitive to the dulling effects of censorship, Ross was sympathetic to the plight of Claudia Clare, after she was ‘cancelled’ by the Craft Potters Association amongst other institutions, including London’s major art school Central St Martin’s, for her “gender critical” views. Over 1,000 people have signed a petition asking for Clare to be ‘uncancelled’.
Thankfully Jonathan can decide by himself what to show, but he is not seeking or expecting controversy by hosting it. “It’s quite simple, really. Claudia, whose work I have exhibited several times before, got in touch and told me a bit about what she had been going through in terms of ‘cancel culture’. I am not particularly political but I admire Claudia and her work, which is accomplished, frequently compassionate and deeply felt.
“I was annoyed on her behalf by what had occurred and, as it happens, I was looking for someone to exhibit in October so was very happy to accommodate her. I asked her if there was anyone she would like to show with and she suggested Frances. It is a ‘by invitation’ space in a private house so I trust that no-one is offended by what they see, though if they were that would not necessarily be a bad thing, in my opinion.”
Fired is at 286 Gallery in Earls Court 4-27 October 2022
For further information contact Jonathan Ross:
Phone 07747 807576 or jross@gallery286.com
* From August, a book of charcoal drawings by Frances Aviva Blane with an essay by Susie Orbach. Starmount Publishing. Available soon at Amazon, Waterstones etc. £35.
See also: The Force dyad in St James