teetotum

Claire Brewster

'cut map'

The artist, as an outsider, is ideally placed for picking up that which has been chucked out. My work is about retrieving the discarded, celebrating the unwanted and giving new life to the obsolete. In between the glossy consumption of first-time retailed goods and those which are thrown out (to be incinerated or land-filled) is the netherworld of the second hand. Flea markets, carboots sales, and charity shops. Perhaps you can tell as much about a society by what it throws out as by what it puts in its museums as mementos of prior existence. It is the discarded and the second hand that provides me with much of my raw material and inspiration.

At fold I intend to make a piece of work using a whole ordnance survey map, to explore the idea of repetition and pattern. Which is reflected in the lines on the map and the pattern I make with the map. In my work I am fascinated by the idea of transforming things, taking unwanted, unused and outdated things and turning them into something new and and wanted. A nostalgia and a genuine fascination with 'things' from another place or time and the desire to examine the overlooked feeds my creativity.

Residency Oct 6 7 8