Art | Articles & Guides

Artist Claire Luxton on Making the July/Aug Issue Cover

Lucy Cleland — Wed, 05 Jul 2023 08:00:40 +0000

Lucy Cleland recounts the story behind the latest cover of C&TH, which was created by artist Claire Luxton with a little help from Skydiamond.

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Making The Cover: Interview with Artist Claire Luxton

The Regeneration Issue is, for me, always our most important issue of the year. I am a self-confessed ecophobe (at least some of the time), and action is the only thing to take the gnawingly anxious edge off. One day it’s almost overwhelming, another I can drink in the blissful elixir of hope. I’m far from alone, I know, and that in itself is a comfort.

The artist Claire Luxton, represented by art agency MTArt, feels it too, yet more often she comes out on the hopeful and optimistic side of the scales. Her works are very much rooted in nature – often with an exploration of the female form, culminating in colour-saturated visions of exquisite vulnerability.

It was her 2020 self-portrait Head in the Clouds that I fell in love with. I knew that a sort of summery iteration, ‘a new season’, as Claire describes it, would symbolise everything that we are trying to capture within this issue about how, although the world is in pain, the axis keeps on spinning and we just need to realign ourselves with Planet Earth rather than pitch ourselves against her, reclaiming the animist philosophy of being part of nature rather than the dualist one of trying to subjugate her. Because we know where that is heading.

Claire’s 2020 work Head in the Clouds inspired a new seasonal iteration for this issue’s cover

And it is within our ken to do it, if only we could slow down, recalibrate, reassess and then act. Remember those curious, silent days of lockdown when nature was allowed her way and we revelled in her daily, unchecked unfurling? She literally and figuratively blossomed, and we noticed.

‘The environment and climate change is an overwhelming topic,’ says Claire, ‘and not always portrayed in the press in a way that makes it accessible to everyone in terms of how they might understand it. To communicate the subject through art and in a more optimistic way that makes people feel that there are still things to celebrate is, for me, a more empowering message.’

Her new iteration Cloud 9 is not only ethereally beautiful as a visual image, it is a meditation on dreaming decoded by the viewer in their own idiosyncratic way. ‘I like the idea that when you daydream,’ says Claire, ‘you are able to manifest and bring it into this world in a positive way. There are so many special and amazing things all around us and we just need to open our eyes to receive it.’

But Claire is not a naturalistic artist; she may find her ideas from nature but it’s our culture and modernity that also inform her. ‘With technology, we’re almost seeking this hyper-realism, an escapism into a more vibrant, brighter space than what we have in front of us. An instant dopamine hit,’ she says. ‘But really, I feel that what we have in front of us is better, so I liked this idea that we’ve also got our heads in a digital cloud and that we’re downloading everything into our minds. And then on top of that, the image is a manifestation of the weather and how our technological infrastructure is affecting it. So, there is a three-way thread linking these ideas up together.’

Artist Claire Luxton

Partnering with Skydiamond as a company that literally takes greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere to create the purest, and most humanly desired, expression of nature – the diamond – shows us ways out of traditional extractive industries into realms where you lack for nothing but you’ve not exploited nature to get what you want.

‘I had my head in the clouds when I came up with the idea for Skydiamond,’ says founder Dale Vince, who is also behind renewable energy company Ecotricity. ‘It probably goes without saying, but the idea of making diamonds from thin air was pretty crazy. And that’s what everyone told me. That we have been able to do it though shows the power of imagination, dreams and doggedness. I have all three is abundance, especially the doggedness. And what we’ve done is modern alchemy, we make something valued from something less so – we make something we quite like to have from something we have too much of. For me, it’s a hearts and minds outcome – it shows what we can do if we put our minds to it. This is the kind of inventiveness we need to allow us to get to net zero without giving up the things we like to have or do.’

For Claire, the diamond symbolises time – and effort. ‘There are ways in which we can start to do things differently now with the knowledge that we have. And it might take time, but we’ll end up with something beautiful in the end.’

So perhaps, unlike the current mantra, we need to not just follow the science, but to also follow the art – it may eventually lead us more effectively to the place we need to be.

claireluxtonart.com

The post Artist Claire Luxton on Making the July/Aug Issue Cover appeared first on Country and Town House.

Kate Middleton Opens The Brand New Young V&A

Olivia Emily — Wed, 28 Jun 2023 16:24:25 +0000

After a long three years in the works, the Victoria and Albert Museum (aka the V&A) is finally re-opening its youth-focussed outpost, the Young V&A. Ahead of the official re-opening this weekend (1 July), Kate Middleton paid the Bethnal Green museum a visit, greeting local school children, parents and teachers in a lovely pink dress.

The Princess was welcomed into the museum, which is nearing the end of a three-year refurbishment period, by V&A Chairman Sir Nicholas Coleridge, V&A Director Dr Tristram Hunt, Young V&A Director Dr Helen Charman, and the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, before being given a tour of the building by Dr Hunt and Dr Philippa Simpson, the V&A’s Director of Design, Estate and Public Programme, and schoolchildren from Globe Primary School, who played a key role in the creation of Young V&A. With all of the most important features (which you can read more about below) being pointed out by V&A staff and children, Kate experienced first-hand the brand new spaces. Plus, at the end of the tour, she was presented with three gift bags to take home to her children by local children, Percy and Zeo.

‘Young V&A is the UK’s first and only free museum designed with and for children, families, and young people,’ says Dr Hunt. ‘We’ve created a new space dedicated to the way that children play and learn, to support them as they grow, and it was wonderful to share the project with The Princess of Wales, given her personal commitment to promoting the importance of investing in children’s early years.’

Everything You Need To Know About The New Young V&A

Situated in East London’s Bethnal Green, the Young V&A is a major new national museum and cultural destination designed specifically for young people aged 0–14 years old. Formerly the V&A Museum of Childhood, the new space hopes to inspire the next generation of young artists, performers and practitioners, and visitors can expect a combination of interactive spaces and playscapes alongside galleries and exhibitions.

The Town Square at Young V&A. Image by Picture Plane © Victoria and Albert Museum London

‘Young V&A is a clarion call for the vital importance of creativity in children and young people’s lives,’ said Dr Helen Charman, Director of Young V&A, upon the reopening news. ‘We want Young V&A to inspire young people and families with the creative ingenuity of art, performance, and design, to empower educators from early years workers to teachers, parents, and carers to promote creativity, and to influence child-centred museum practice across the sector. We can’t wait to welcome everyone to Young V&A this July.’

‘Children and young people have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic and its aftermath, alongside the dramatic fall in creative education in schools,’ added Dr Tristram Hunt, Director of the V&A. ‘Young V&A is our response: a flagship project investing in creativity with and for young people and their futures. We are using our stunning collection of art, design and performance to open the nation’s favourite design club for all children and young people.

‘In new galleries and exhibitions, from early years spaces to teenage games design rooms, our plan is to foster Britain’s next generation of artists, thinkers, makers, innovators, and entrepreneurs,’ Dr Hunt added.

When Will The Young V&A Open?

The Young V&A will open on 1 July 2023, with the first exhibition scheduled to open on 14 October 2023. This exhibition will be Japan: Myths to Manga, showcasing Studio Ghibli, Pokémon, manga-inspired fashion and more, transporting visitors on a journey through Japanese history to explore how landscape and folklore have influenced popular culture, technology, and design.

What Can Visitors Expect To See At The Young V&A?

The Young V&A is all about hands-on creative experiences. Alongside over 2,000 highlights from the V&A’s art, design, and performance collections – from Hokusai to Keith Haring, Micro Scooter to Minecraft and Superheroes to the Surrealists – visitors can expect to see, experience and enjoy:

Three galleries shaped around ‘Play’, ‘Imagine’ and ‘Design’
Topical contemporary displays and exhibitions
Sensory playscapes
A finger skateboard park
A sandpit
An ‘Imagination Playground’ construction zone
Colourful and tactile sensory landscapes for infants and toddlers
A performance and storytelling stage designed for early readers and writers
An open design studio where children can learn from leading designers
A games design space for teens
Three workshop spaces dedicated to learning
A reading room with a year-round programme of learning and education, ranging from early years sessions to curriculum based learning to after school and holiday activities.

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The Adventure Display in the Imagine Gallery