Sweeping away the two-dimensional limitations of painting, Mary-Clare Buckle's work has a tactile, three-dimensional quality and reflects her character - vibrant, colourful, effervescent and full of life. As a fibre artist, she works predominantly in felted wool, but has always avoided the traditional 'craft' connotations of this medium.
She has developed the technique of 'Floating' felts, mounting the - ethereal and almost transparent - pieces between sheets of clear acrylic, so that light, whether ambient or intentional, interacts with them. Unlike conventional framing, the viewer's eye is not constrained to a rectangle and, hung slightly away from the wall, the pieces have the appearance of floating in three dimensions.
The artist also lights these semi-transparent pieces from behind or the side, intentionally subverting the boundaries between art and interior design, by turning an artwork into an 'Art Light'. She also uses gently flashing lights to draw the viewer's attention to a piece and then momentarily divert it from the fibres to the lights themselves.
Her latest development is to use uv (blacklight) cold cathode tubes mounted within an acrylic frame to create an impression of space and depth - bringing into glowing focus the uv-reactive fibres in the piece, whilst plunging the background into semi-darkness. The three-dimensional feeling is enhanced by stray fibres being statically attracted to the clear facing sheet.
Buckle's abstract expressionist work is often motivationally informed by the tactile nature and pure colour of the fibre/felt medium itself - 'playing' with an array of different textures and threads and letting the medium control the design. The lit pieces are inspired by her immersion in pop culture and the clubbing scene: the fluorescent clothes, glow-sticks, lasers, flashing coloured lights and the semi-abstract moving visuals behind the DJs.
Other inspiration includes: film sets, especially the underground city in Matrix Reloaded and the chaotically moving traffic in Fifth Element; mediæval artefacts; textures used in Indian/Moroccan/South American fabrics (related to various trips abroad); lacquer work; Italian glass.
She is also working on a range of conceptual work, inspired by pop-culture and BritArt - some pieces as floating felts and some more 'solid' pieces, which are framed conventionally. Her creative process for this work often starts with an idea from a subverted cultural icon, a song title, or an idea invading her consciousness in the middle of the night.
The artist sometimes combines digital images with felt - eg in It's Raining Men, which was originally suggested by the Weather Girls song. She will be producing a companion piece - It's Raining Women, with images of iconic (or otherwise) female celebrities. She is also working on a series of pieces which highlight or parody the clichés associated with a geographical area or place - a London-themed piece will have images of red phone boxes, double-decker buses, beefeaters, etc.
Mary-Clare Buckle was born in the Philippines, studied art and three-dimensional design at the Surrey Institute of Art & Design and the University of Central England and designed and made jewellery for the initial part of her career. Her work can be viewed, all the year round, at her studio-gallery in the artists' enclave of Abbotsbury, in West Dorset, or on her much-acclaimed website, www.1-art-1.com.