Clare Mitten's work begins from a curiosity about objects and their 'actual' and 'imagined' appearance in the real world. The artist uses the familiarity of everyday Tech - laptops, mobile phones, projectors, printers - to function as a kind of 'anchor' to hold the world still. The process of attempting to objectively describe something while at the same re-creating it, allows similarities and connections to other disparate ideas about these objects to be playfully explored.

The works consists of a newly constructed (remade) version of each object, in parallel to the real (previous) object. This being a central point/hub by which to leave and then return to. The process of coming and going, flipping between 2D and 3D, construction, painting and collage, all within the general dimension of sculpture, allows for a synthesis of different ways of viewing and understanding this real/unreal combination.

The imperfect edges and folds, the rips and tears, smudges and stains of the handmade, and also the shadows resulting from their placement in the physical world, flicks like a switch between the real and the imaginary, what we expect something to look like, and what we do not expect, bringing artist and viewer back to the sheer hard reality of the surface of things with our own physical domain.

Clare Mitten studied at the Royal College of Art (MA Painting, 2004 – 2006), University of Gloucestershire (BA Hons Fine Art Painting, 1998 – 2001), and University of Sussex (BA Hons History of Art with French, 1990 – 1994). Selected exhibitions include Analog, curated by Tot Taylor, Riflemaker, London, 2011; Pile, curated by Craig Fisher, Chapter, Cardiff, 2011; Double Trouble, Blyth Gallery, London, 2010; Artisterium, Karvasla, Tbilisi, Georgia, 2010; A Curious Context, Lobby, One Canada Square, Canary Wharf, London, 2010; Fault Line: Art in the Age of Anxiety, The Nunnery, London, 2009; Breaking New, Five Hundred Dollars, London, 2009. Awards include the Helen Chadwick Memorial Prize, Royal College of Art (2005) and British Council Artist Residencies to Tbilisi, Georgia (2010) and Dhaka, Bangladesh (2008).

She has been awarded a Jerwood Painting Fellowship 2010 – 2011 and will exhibit at Jerwood Space, London, 11th May – 26th June 2011.

AZTECH_Toppal (Red), 2010, Paper Folders, Paper and Glue, 34 x 28 x 30 cm

AZTECH_Tablet, 2010, Paper Folders, Paper and Glue , 24 x 11 x 10 cm

AZTECH_Backup, 2010, Cardboard, Paper, Glue and Blackboard Paint, 70 x 36 x 27 cm