Claire’s practice encompasses visual art, writing, and educational facilitation and engagement.

Claire’s first novel Treading Water was a finalist in the Dundee Book Prize. Her short stories are published in magazines and anthologies, and her poetry has been placed in prizes, including Hippocrates, Resurgence, and Winchester. In 2018 she was awarded the inaugural Women Poets’ Prize by the Rebecca Swift Foundation.

Claire originally studied English & Drama at Goldsmiths College before switching to photography and building a reputation for her work around women and identity. When she developed ME, her work and working methods reflected this. She was commissioned by Camerawork for the publication and exhibition, Silent Health, which toured for two years. Her photography has been exhibited widely and is documented in What Can a Woman Do With a Camera? ed. Jo Spence & Joan Solomon. She worked as a visiting lecturer and disability arts consultant, was Visual Arts editor for Disability Arts magazine, and taught Visual Literacy for The Photographers’ Gallery.

Claire was Artist in Residence at the Women’s Art Library in 2017, and in 2019 was awarded Arts Council England/Lottery funding to develop Truth is Beauty - a project informed by her experience of breast cancer, and utilising her thirty years experience of working around issues of identity/women/body/self/representation. The work straddles a wide range of disciplines, and incorporates performance, participation, walking art, and poetry. It was awarded the Big Draw Festival Prize, 2019.

Claire teaches creative writing. She has run courses at Birkbeck, and at the Mary Ward Centre, where she created Writing the City. She specialises in designing workshops in unusual settings, including at Brockwell Lido, where she was artist in residence; at the Barbican, Sir John Soane Museum, and on the Aylesbury Estate.

In recent years, Claire has focused on combining her range of experience to broker engagement -
Working with partners including Kettle’s Yard, Waltham Forest, Borough of Culture, and the Government Art Collection to create bespoke engagement resources. She has been Creative Partner for the Cultural Institute at King’s College London; and has facilitated projects for the Croydon Refugee Heritage Project, Thames Festival, and Rivers of the World. In 2021 she designed a Summer of Play for National Maritime Museum, supporting families and carers build confidence in helping children develop their literacy skills, post-lockdown.

Writer

Artist

Learning