Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
,
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
) is a British-American conceptual artist and educator based in
Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...
. Her work contemplates, exaggerates and defamiliarizes accepted rules and practices of everyday life, extending the ordinary to the poetic and absurd. Her works spans and expands upon many disciplines including film, video, performance, fibers, drawing and writing. Clayton has exhibited her art nationally and internationally.
Biography
Lenka Clayton earned a
Master of Arts
A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...
in Documentary Direction from the
National Film and Television School
The National Film and Television School (NFTS) is a film, television and games school established in 1971 and based at Beaconsfield Studios in Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire, England. It is featured in the 2021 ranking by ''The Hollywood Repor ...
, and a
Bachelor of Arts
Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four years ...
in Fine Art from Central Saint Martins, London.
Her materials are often culled from daily life and range from maps, letters, paper mail, clothing and stones to objects pulled from her sons mouth. Her dedicated processes utilize unique systems and bizarre re-organizations, offering a world deconstructed, rearranged and freshly envisioned.
Some exhibitions include the
Carnegie Museum of Art
The Carnegie Museum of Art, is an art museum in the Oakland neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Originally known as the Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute and was at what is now the Main Branch of the Carnegie Library of Pittsbur ...
in Pittsburgh, FRAC Le Plateau in Paris, Kunsthalle St. Gallen in Switzerland,
Anthology Film Archives
Anthology Film Archives is an international center for the preservation, study, and exhibition of film and video, with a particular focus on independent, experimental, and avant-garde cinema.Tehran International Documentary Festival in Iran.
She is an adjunct assistant professor of art at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) as of 2016.
Clayton was named "Emerging Artist of the Year" in 2013 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Her work is included in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Blanton Museum of Art, University of Texas at Austin; Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia; and Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville.
Clayton has been represented b Catharine Clark Gallery San Francisco since 2019.
Selected works
''Berlin'' (2003)
''Berlin'' is a 2 × 1.5m municipal map of
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...
meticulously cut up into 39 different categories and cataloged in sealed bags. Clayton's categories include bags of schools, graveyards, and roads. Houses are crammed together tightly, while parks have more space in a larger bag due to their size and frequency.
''Qaeda, quality, question, quickly, quickly, quiet'' is a video of President
George W. Bush
George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Republican Party, Bush family, and son of the 41st president George H. W. Bush, he ...
's 2002 "Axis of Evil" speech cut and edited alphabetically. This piece also exists as a limited edition vinyl soundtrack.
''7,000 stones'' (2009)
''7,000 Stones'' was created during Clayton's tenure as the Theodore Randall International Chair at
Alfred University
Alfred University is a private university in Alfred (village), New York, Alfred, New York. It has a total undergraduate population of approximately 1,600 students. The university hosts the New York State College of Ceramics, which includes The ...
. The piece alludes to the lost artifacts of the Allen Steinheim Museum. Clayton's tiny, precise numbers hand-painted on 7,000 stones contemplate the many dispersed museum objects whose only remaining links to the missing collection are their painted acquisition numbers. Other works calling attention to the lost collection are ''Found Instructions 1'' and ''Amnesty for the Museum''.
''Artist Residency in Motherhood'' (2012-2014)
Becoming a mother of two children further inspired Clayton's creative drive and she devised for herself an ''Artist Residency in Motherhood.'' The residency took place within her home and was fully funded by various organizations, including the Robert C. Smith Fund, the Betsy R. Clark Fund of The Pittsburgh Foundation, and the
Sustainable Arts Foundation
Specific definitions of sustainability are difficult to agree on and have varied in the literature and over time. The concept of sustainability can be used to guide decisions at the global, national, and individual levels (e.g. sustainable livin ...
. An artist residency situated within the family home "subverts the art-world’s romanticization of the unattached artist, and frames motherhood as a valuable site, rather than an invisible labour." Works produced during this time include: ''The Distance I Can Be From My Son'', ''All Scissors in the House Made Safer'', ''63 Objects from My Son's Mouth'', ''Women's Intuition (hats)'', ''Moons From Next Door'', and ''One Brown Shoe,'' they are archived on-line at www.residencyinmotherhood.com. Works from Clayton's ''Artist Residency in Motherhood'' were exhibited at
Pittsburgh Center for the Arts
The Pittsburgh Center for the Arts (PCA) is a non-profit community arts campus that offers arts education programs and contemporary art exhibitions in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States.
It also provides services and resources for artists th ...