Clare’s creativity is driven by raw emotion, survival, and a rare, consuming passion for painting. For over three decades she poured her emotional truth directly onto canvas, long before she had language or even memory of the forces that compelled it.

Clare was particularly drawn to the intensity of Renaissance painting and the emotionally charged work of late‑nineteenth‑century painters such as Munch and Van Gogh, whose emotional force felt instinctively familiar to her. She spent much of her twenties travelling to Italy to encounter Renaissance painting first‑hand, connecting deeply to the narrative and psychological depth held within the works.

During her master’s degree she immersed herself in Dante’s Divine Comedy. Its structure and emotional gravity resonated with her own way of working, and became an important influence on her approach to painting at the time. 

For years Clare painted with an inner force, releasing just enough of the inner scream for her to survive. The trauma inside eventually outpaced the work, and she could no longer outrun or out‑paint it. Under the accumulated strain her body finally shut down, separating her even from the passion that had sustained her. What had been a lifeline became impossible to maintain; the break from painting wasn’t a choice but the point where survival demanded everything she had left.

A few special people fought for a diagnosis and for the treatment she is now in. After many years of therapy, amnesic barriers begin to fade, bringing clarity to memory and, in turn, to the work itself. It becomes clear that the vast canvases were their language long before their names were known.

Now art has returned, in pencil: small, quiet drawings instead of vast canvases. Delicate and composed yet carrying a deep presence, they are self‑portraits of inner parts and memories, coming forward with quiet, extraordinary courage.

These drawings form the foundation of a new body of work and a forthcoming book, HIDDEN. - Coming Soon!