www.clairemalet.com

I am a Sculptor working in precious, non-precious and found-metals. My work is inspired by the rich textures, colours and sculpted shapes of natural forms and landscapes. My work is exhibited internationally and is in private and public collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Living and working in rural Herefordshire in the UK, I am surrounded by my subject matter. My studio overlooks orchards, hills and woodland. I spend a good deal of time walking, looking at the landscape and the details within it, the changes through the year. I also travel and explore other landscapes and regularly walk coast paths and beaches. I have no interest in copying nature, but aim to capture a sense of it, my response to it, a moment in time.

I am particularly drawn to vessel forms, both organic and manmade. Vessels are one of the most basic and universal of objects, in daily mundane use and playing vital roles at occasions of celebration and honour. ‘Vessels’ found in nature for example, catching the eye of the beachcomber, have done their job, briefly becoming relics before decay continues the constant cycle of production. Through my on-going work with ‘found’ metal cans, I am exploring ideas of production, transformation, renewal through decay and reuse, and of perceived value; taking a throw-away, manmade, mass-produced food-can, I ‘transform’ it into a ‘precious’ vessel; each piece inspired by an element of the natural world: a battered rock formation, dancing light and shadow in woodland. In contrast, when working in silver, I make pieces which focus on objects ‘discarded’ by nature: a curl of split bark, a seed pod. In doing so, I make pieces, which by using a precious material, ‘transform’ and draw attention to the value of a ‘throw-away’ and often transient object from nature. My objective is to make pieces that celebrate and notice the relationship between the natural environment and the extraordinary materials it provides.

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