I am an artist-researcher from Yorkshire (UK) exploring landscape through an auto-ethnographic and site-specific methodology. My work includes film, music composition, ceramics, installation and creative writing.
I am interested in how landscapes are receivers, repositories and translators of knowledge systems, histories and stories. In particular, the confluence of colonial, geological, ecological and maternal themes are central to my work. My practice engages with an auto-ethnographic methodology that explores how we find and make meaning in the landscape, and how creative practice can reveal such knowledge, whereby the landscape itself can be a teacher or performer, rather than a backdrop to teaching or agency. The theoretical framework of my research is informed by anthropology, geology, phenomenology, ecofeminism and maternal theory.
I have been awarded the WRoCAH scholarship (Arts & Humanities Research Council UK) for my practice-based PhD project, ‘Mothering Beyond the Flesh: ecology, landscape and maternal agency in the Anthropocene’. My position as mother and artist is used to both presuppose and question a theory of maternal agency in the Anthropogenic landscape, using specific gardens as case studies within the UNESCO biosphere island of Lanzarote. This work involves a combination of fieldwork, including oral history projects, embedded creative practice and reflective processing of the site; repositioning and translating knowledge generated in the landscape through an auto-ethnographic and creative methodology.
The aim of my work is to explore and illuminate the historical roots of our ecological crisis, and question the role of caregiving within the wider realm of landscape theory.
Education
2023-27: Practice-based PhD: ‘Mothering Beyond the Flesh’ (University of Leeds, UK)
2022: MA Fine Art (University of Leeds, UK)
2003: BA(Hons) Fine Art (University of Huddersfield, UK)
Selected Exhibitions
Solo
2024: ‘Our Wider Flesh’, Project Space, University of Leeds, UK.
2022: ‘Sobremesa’, FAHACS, University of Leeds, UK.
2020: ‘Archipelago’, South Square Gallery, Thornton, UK
2008: ‘Northern Caves’, Stasjon K Gallery, Sandnes, Norway.
2006: ‘Documents & Mirrors’, Upernavik Museum, Upernavik, Northwest Greenland.
Group
2026: ‘Stories in Motion’, Bath House Gallery, Huddersfield, UK
2025: ‘Practice as Discovery’, East Street Arts, Leeds.
2021: ‘Rui d’art exhibition’, Riba Roja d’Ebre, Spain.
2019: ‘Festival de Arte de Lanzarote’, Casa de Cultura & Sala Del Quirofano, Arrecife, Lanzarote.
2007: ‘The Reykjavik Winter Lights Festival’, SIM Gallery, Reykjavik, Iceland.
Albums (written, performed & produced)
2017: ‘Firewall & Silencio’
2015: ‘The Last Winter’
’Wovo’
2014: ‘Terrafidella’
Residencies
2021: Rui d’art, Riba Roja d’Ebre, Catalunya, Spain (Sep-Oct)
2008: AIR Toos Neger, Dordrecht, The Netherlands (August)
AIR Stasjon K Studios, Sandnes kommune, Sandnes, Norway (January – March)
2007: Cyprus College of Art, Lemba, Pafos, Cyprus (April – July)
SIM- The Icelandic Association of Visual Artists, Reykjavik, Iceland (February)
2006: Upernavik Museum, Upernavik, Greenland (September – December)
Awards
2023: WRoCAH (White Rose Centre for Arts & Humanities) scholarship for PhD project.
2022: Arts Council UK ‘Develop Your Creative Practice’ grant. Researching ecological alternatives to printmaking and photographic processes.
2008: Scholarship from Sandnes Kommune for residency at Stasjon K Studios, Norway.
2006: Arts Council England grant for 3 month residency at Upernavik Museum, Upernavik, Greenland.
2007: Leonard Da Vinci grant (Grampus Heritage Fund) for 6 week residency at Cyprus College of Art.
Journals/press
‘Guaguas’ – https://www.soanywaymagazine.org/issues
‘Monsterland’ – https://cepra.leeds.ac.uk/cepra-journal/journal-issue-3/issue-3-clare-carter-osborne/
‘Recording in the Dark’ – Huffington Post Interview with Clare Carter, 2013.
London and Nuuk: Clare Carter Interview, 2009. Residencies