Claire Spencer works from observation with a restless, exploratory line, folding the seen world into lively compositions that sit between drawing and painting. Landscapes, plants, still life and portraiture recur, but never as fixed motifs: hills are mapped as rhythms and fields, branches become vectors, faces emerge from atmospheres of colour. She builds images through layered media—charcoal, pastel, ink, collage and thin washes—so that crisp contours, rubbed passages and translucent veils play off each other.
A vivid, modern palette anchors the work: lime and leaf greens, electric blues, magentas and hot reds counterbalanced by graphite greys and soft chalk whites. Spencer often treats the page as a site for editing and assembly; newspaper grounds, taped joins and overdrawn corrections remain visible, giving the drawings the tempo of notation and the tactility of construction.
Across subjects, her attention is rhythmic and structural. She tracks the way a hillside terraces into pattern, how a canopy cuts space into shards, how a sitter's presence concentrates light. Gestural marks mingle with plotted lines, letting spontaneity and measure co-exist. The result is a body of work that feels alert and generous—images that register place and personality while celebrating the act of looking itself.
Selected Works
A curated selection of Claire Spencer's work, including self-portraits, landscapes, and sketches from her travels in Umbria.
Charcoal
56 x 76 cm
