Clare

Watt

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Clare Watt

Clare Watt makes images that ache with a longing for worlds just out of reach. Working exclusively with vintage issues of L’Oeil, a French magazine from the 1960s and ’70s, she cuts and reconfigures fragments of postwar modernism into scenes that feel both familiar and fictional. Her practice orbits around anemoia, nostalgia for a time never lived, tethered by an almost devotional attachment to the materiality of print: its texture, weight, and aura.

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In the Words of the Artist

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My work is focused on the idea of anemoia, which is a feeling of nostalgia for a time you never knew or experienced. I create work using a specific magazine and its collection from the 1950s to -1970’s which focuses on art and architecture. I cut out various pieces and then reconstruct new images based on these pieces, making my reality from a time in the past.

Much of my work is about reconnecting with these lost spaces, from a demolished building that no longer exists to utopian space that is still conserved to this day. I've almost put limitations on my work because I'm so specific about using this discontinued magazine, which I have to source through online marketplaces and auctions. But at the same time, my work is a lot about the materiality, and going back to a time where, in more ways than one, the quality was superior. In terms of the paper stock and general imagery of that time.

Collage has always been a way for me to explore spatial relationships and form. I always come back to it in my practice; it’s a fixation that allows me to reimagine new places that previously existed in my head. I also feel like it's a medium that I’m very considerate of, I’m very careful with the imagery I intervene with, almost becoming protective over the “perfect” image. I have scans and folders of magazine pages that are almost too good to change- I want to keep them in their original state forever.

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In my work, I try to communicate the feeling of nostalgia for a time you never knew or experienced. The attachment to a space and an image that might not exist anymore. My technique involves carefully embedding images within existing magazine layouts to make them appear as though they were always part of the original scene. Half of the time, it's fairly obvious to the viewer where I’ve placed the cutouts, and then sometimes I have to go back myself and physically feel where I’ve placed the cutout onto the magazine page.

I've always been attached to this French magazine, L'Oeil, in particular issues from the 1960s/1970s. There's something about the paper used in that period that appeals to me when I start making a piece. The magazine also includes a range of architectural and interior design images. They are hard to find in the US, but I found a stack of them on eBay recently and bought them all.

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I think that the paper texture makes a difference when I scan the image; you can see the grain in some of the collages. Usually, when I have in-person studio visits and show the viewer the source of the images, a conversation starts on how amazing the quality of the paper is and about the incredible imagery.

I really love Eileen Gray’s Bauhaus collages, the clean lines and perspective she creates in them. That's something I always try to replicate in my practice. Also, Romare Bearden’s work, in particular, the layering of the buildings and architecture in the background of his images. I think that there’s such a fine line in collage where too much layering can create chaos.

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About the Artist

Clare Watt, raised outside London and shaped by her Scottish and British roots, is a New York-based artist and curator whose work explores the medium of collage in all its forms. She received her BFA from the University for the Creative Arts in Canterbury. Clare recently completed a residency at ChaNorth in Pine Plains and has exhibited at notable spaces including the Royal Academy in London, The Re-Institute, ArtPort Kingston, and PRIV.Y Gallery in New York.

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