Anita Clipston

Country where you live:

United States

City where you live:

New York

Website:

http://www.anitaclipston.com

Instagram:

https://www.instagram.com/anitaclipstonartist/

Linkedin:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitaclipston/

Statement :

Wearing & Unraveling Trauma

There have always been threads, whether conscious or subconscious, that have woven through the fabric of my life. For me these threads have been Cocoons of Love and Cages of Trauma.

The rooms in my paintings are imagined spaces that hold within them the traumas I tried to escape and yet became part of, told within the metanarrative of time. My paintings reveal, and yet leave hidden, parts of me through sexuality, costume and characters. The characters are both connected and disconnected in the knitting together of these stories. The rooms are inviting, dangerous, beautiful and yet lived in. In these spaces, I inhabit and escape my reality and at the same time show that I am not my trauma, but set apart from it by the very act of creating these spaces. I do not disown my trauma; however, I do not let it be the foundation of who I am.

I believe when we see our lives as imperfect seams, dropped stitches and uneven hems, we learn to love them and use them as tools to heal both ourselves and others through our honesty, our bravery and our art.

The work is the start of a journey to create a much larger installation and body of work surrounding this subject

The Wolf Within

Woodcut on paper

le Cerf blanc

Oil on Linen Part of. Series

Ceridwen

Oil on Linen Part of. Series

The Other Wolf

Woodcut on paper

Bio:

Anita Clipston earned her B.A. from Norwich School of Art and Design in the United Kingdom in Classical Animation in 1998 and worked in film and theatre for many years. She studied in her spare time the Florence method at Mandy Boursicot Atelier in Vancouver, Canada. Where she also worked as a teacher and studio assistant. After the sudden loss of her Mother she channelled her energy in her own artwork and she went on to complete her M.F.A at the New York Academy of Art, Graduate School of Figurative Art where she has just graduated with the class of 2021

“My work embodies the quiet sense of being in this world. Seen by the persons lines and facets in face, the life and fire behind the eyes. The way the body holds its pose, the stance, the way a person
places themselves in the chair, to the way they place themselves in this world. This is what has always fascinated me. How all these things tell a person's story be it mundane or brutal, calm or disturbing. How the person emerges from the paper, the paint and gives us a glimpse into their psychology, their own realism, their own social status and place in this world. Their life lived. To feel their stories, the pain and to paint it with raw truth and yet empathy. This is my truth in my art.”

In her latest body of work, she uses her knowledge and love of film to create tableaus and moments from her life, with multiple layered allegory’s that represent her theme of wearing and unravelling trauma. She weaves together these threads and traverses the idea that our psyche is in part created by trauma and in part by the triumphs of our creations

Her series of rooms are stages of life told through the metanarrative of time and her woodcuts are seen as the raw personal process between the stages. Using the use of 3D generated computer models and traditional 3d models to work her final compositions and lighting for her paintings to create a narrative and reveal her personal story.