Education

1992-94 Royal College of art, MA Fine Art Tapestry

1989-92 West Surrey College of Art and Design, BA (hons) Textiles with First Class honours

Solo Exhibitions

1999 Tears to Wake the Flowers (blue),

Watch this Space Gallery, Alice Springs, Australia

1999 The Red Gown, Fremantel Arts Centre, Australia

1998 Red Brick, Mount House Gallery, Marlborough College, Wiltshire

1997 The Last of the Dandelion Seeds, Gallery Cyprian Mayernik, Bratislava, Slovakia

Group Exhibitions

2000 Roam, Coed Hills, West Glamorgan, Wales

2001 Ideal Format #10, 24Hr Art, Darwin, Australia

1999 Meelfabriek, Clinch’s Mill, Greenough Hamlet, Australia

1998 Tempered, Fabrica, Brighton, England

1997 Contemporary Craft, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal, Cumbria

1996 Objects of our Time, Crafts Council Gallery (and tour)

1996 Living at Belsay, Belsay Hall, Northumberland

Awards

1998 Sir Robert Menzies Visual Arts Fellowship, Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Perth, Australia

1997 Eurpoean Artists’ Pépinière, 4 th Programme Residency in Sculpture, Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Slovakia

Commissions

2002 Land and the Samling, Kielder, Northumberland commissioned by The Samling Foundation

1998 Installation for the Seagram Corporate Contemporary Art Collection

at the Ark, London

1996 Installation for the grounds of Norbury Park, Surrey, supported by

Surrey County Council

Further Work Experience

2001 Lecturer in Textile Art on BA and MA degree courses, Winchester

School of Art, University of Southampton

2001 Artist in Residence, Bardsey Island, North West coast of Gwynedd, Wales

1999 Artist in Residence, Northern Territory University, Darwin, Australia

1999 Artist in Residence, Geraldton Regional Art Gallery, Australia

1999 Artist in Residence, Tasmanian School of Art, Lauceston, University of Tasmania, Australia

Artist in Residence, Marlborough College, Wiltshire, England

“Although I am essentially a textile artist my practice has encompassed performance, installation and text. My work is often nostalgic, informed by the day-to-day rituals of eating, sleeping, cleaning, travelling and drawing. Travelling in New Zealand a couple of years ago I spent a night in a farmer’s barn filled with bales of fleece. I covered myself with the dense mass of fibres and felt beautifully warn and dry. Subsequently in Mongolia I searched for felt. Traditional hospitality ensured that I was invited into the felt tents of ‘gers’ of Mongolian nomads. Since these experiences I have become interested in creating more functional works placed in the environment to help passers-by during their travels. These responses have been created from felt. Felt is a fundamental material made from shorn fleece and water alone. Battering the fibres causes them to become matted together until felt is formed.

I have been cycling in Kielder Forest pulling a wooden roller encased in rolls of fleece. After many days the fleece began to respond to my journey until the resultant battering against the road surface formed felt. Finally the energy I expended enabled me to create a felted material strong enough to hold me. Within it I slept so that even at night my journey did not cease but was suspended until the following dawn.”

Claire Barber, July 2002