April Claggett

Art and Graphic Design

 

 

April Claggett Art and Graphic Design

Artist's Statement

 

I grew up on a farm which forms a peninsula on the Chesapeake Bay, surrounded by tidewater. At first impulse, my painting is always inspired by light and color. Colors are the troupe, the swimmers, the gymnasts that never keep to themselves. My recent work, many of 6ft. in dimension, uses the language of imaginary disrupted realism and the transformational nature of paint to create impossible realities yet portals of empathy, beauty and longed-for wholeness.

As a young artist, I explored sculpture. Being athletic and horsey, the physicality of both the making and the made suited me. I always understood the metaphysics of the creative process, and it was just so direct and rewarding with clay. Then the chaotic miracle of the firing. After decades of parenting, teaching, farming, and community building, I have been practicing painting, drawing and art scholarship full time. The imposed abstraction at the nexus of a more-or-less two dimensional surface and representational imagery interests me. My current scholarly interests are with contemporary practices that include art production and display, media theory and the role of the creative process in human society.