Claire Mont Smith

Claire Mont Smith is based in East London, and has strong rural links to the West Country. She has a BA in Fine Art from Reading University, an MA in Fine Art from Chelsea College of Art, and an MA in Contemporary Art Theory from Goldsmiths. She studied etching at the Royal Drawing School and was until recently Chair of East London Printmakers. She has exhibited widely in the UK since the 1970s, and her work is represented in the collections of Courtauld/Ruth Borchard, the V&A, University of Sussex, Devon County Council and London Borough Tower Hamlets. Over the years, Claire’s practice has taken many forms– paintings, installations, assemblages, environments. For the last ten years it has involved printmaking processes, primarily etching and screenprint. Although often abstract in form, Claire’s art is always concerned with the material world that surrounds us – atmosphere, environment, surface, texture, natural forms. Stories from science, history, nature and the everyday run through her work, as do ideas of vulnerability, eternality, longevity. ‘Colliding Worlds’ ( first image) is part of a screen print series which uses forms relating to planets and meteors, but refers also to collisions in our environment, societies and personal lives - some inevitable, some avoidable. ‘Forgotten River’ (second image) screenprint series is a reflection on the evolutionary and environmental significance of river and ocean, and the aquatic life in their depths. August 2023