About the artist
Irish born Clare O Hagan is an award winning visual artist, printmaker and filmmaker who lives in Derbyshire. The artist’s vision / way of being in this world was informed by growing up in a working class catholic family in a small linen mill village in Northern Ireland. Living in close proximity to the border between Southern Ireland, and the North, during the period or conflict of the late 60’s onwards, it was not a safe place for anyone. Witnessing and experiencing firsthand disadvantages both economically and politically, combined with dictates from a deeply misogynistic, monolithic religious organisation it comes as no surprise that the artist’s activism started early. From formative experiences within the emerging civil rights movement the artist has developed a passion for change making and transformative practices which she makes manifest in her work to this day.
About the printmaker
O Hagan’s interest in printmaking was formed as a child, as one Christmas, Santa delivered a John Bull Printing Set. The artist recalls that ‘many small rubber letters bounced across the floor as they flicked out of tiny tweezers, my fingers have remained inky since.’
Her appetite for print and for learning remains undiminished attending courses at Morley College and Slaughterhaus Print Studio in London with Michelle Avison. Following her recent move from London to Derbyshire, O Hagan now attends the Leicester Print Workshop. Working alongside artist printmaker Denise Wyllie over a period of many years has deepened and enriched her knowledge of printmaking immeasurably.
In terms of printmaking, O’Hagan forges ahead unfettered by constraining conventions. Her deep examination of the subject under scrutiny, and experimental approach to printmaking makes for lively, beautiful, inventive, disruptive and at times, challenging work.
The artist’s work incorporates traditional print processes, the re-imagining of traditional print processes, together with new developments in digital print. These include: lino cut, wood cut, etching, drypoint, mono print, paper lithography, photo gravure, digital image manipulation and print.
Content wise, O Hagan’s area of activity falls broadly between two domains:
The female in human form, as Goddess and as Icon
A sense of Place – expressions of internal and external landscapes
Most Recent Art Installation
May Queen – An autobiographical text
Print and adornment on wearable art object
The May Queen’s origins lie in the ancient celebratory rite of the Goddess of Spring. For the artist May Day’s origins stems from childhood memories in the annual construction of a altar in the home and the construction of a nature table at Primary school. In the small school the artist attended, pupils would collect and display flowers, branches of willow catkins, birds feathers and abandoned nests. In the home, Spring flora were placed in jam jars, arranged around a picture or statue of the Virgin Mary and placed on a linen cloth covered niche. The construction of secular and religious altars piqued an interest in making beautiful and meaningful art objects. Connecting with seasonal events, working with found material, honouring and celebrating the Goddess continues to inform O Hagan’s work.
Link to video – Making a May Altar – on YouTube
O Hagan marks May Day yearly. On 6th May 2023 the artist invited herself to attend the Coronation of His Majesty the King in London. O Hagan’s May Queen ceremonial jacket, made in the artist’s Derbyshire studio, is comprised of multi coloured stencilled print of floral motifs and abstract pattern on a denim jacket. The humble materials used in the making of the ceremonial jacket – repurposed clothes, paper stencils and ribbons gifted by a woman who makes rosettes for dog shows – were in stark contrast to the finery and expense exhibited on the day of the Coronation itself.
Link to video – May Day Sketchbook
Recent Exhibitions
Keto Goddess of the Sea
Clare O Hagan’s most recent exhibition – Keto, Goddess of the Sea – was held on June 2021, at The City Arts Space in Parikia, Paros, Greece. The exhibition is comprised of a series of 50+ prints and artifacts,created over a period of 3 years. Observing increased plastic pollution along the shoreline in Paros on frequent visits to the island, the artist felt compelled to take action.
In the land of Greek legend, O Hagan resuscitates a lost female narrative. The artist reimagines the Greek Keto, Goddess of the Dangers of the Sea, and fashions her form from a rock found on Paros together with plastic debris from the shoreline. The work defines a new mythology, discoverable through Keto’s antiquities. These are made using a variety of alternative printmaking/photographic processes – cyanotypes and salt prints, on textiles, paper and stone. A series of etchings featuring objects found on the shoreline, and a collection of imagined fossils mined from rocks form the backbone of the exhibition. The Goddess herself wears a blue fabric robe, fashioned from a large cyanotype print on canvas when taking on an earthly form.
The collective work suggest a sense of scholarly study of the Goddess and icon, which one would observe in material in a museum or place of learning.
Tour of Keto Goddess of the Sea in exhibition on Paros, Greece
Embracing Women
In 2018 O Hagan’s revolutionary solo exhibition exhibition ‘Embracing Women’ was featured in the iconic Erotic Heritage Museum in Las Vegas — a sex positive exhibition space. In 2019 the exhibition moved to the Ironbridge Fine Art Gallery charmingly named village of Merrythought, Ironbridge in Shropshire.
‘Embracing Women’ features a series of some thirty prints created over a period of two decades. Based on life drawing studies, each piece explores sexuality through the lens of O Hagan’s personal feminism. Migrating and merging drawings with different printmaking processes results in a series of joyous, erotic and bold scenarios.
Vibrant colours, contorted bodies and same-sex female couples feature heavily throughout the exhibition, which O Hagan describes as something that “not only explores the female experience but examines notions of sensuality and desire without self-censorship”.
Embracing Women highlights the important distinction between women being sexual, and women being sexualised. Over twenty years of work has culminated in a timely cultural commentary with the artist’s brave exploration of what it means to be a woman — and a sexual being today.
For a copy of the catalogue featuring prints from the’ Embracing Woman’ exhibition dm Clare O Hagan through links below.
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