Claire Kennedy

Claire Kennedy is a contemporary painter and mixed media artist living in Glasgow. After a career in teaching, she now paints full time and has exhibited in various galleries throughout Scotland. Largely self-taught, she works primarily in acrylics, exploring layered and textured effects and often incorporating an image of black and white photography as a final printed layer.

‘I am drawn to old things, weathered things, often overlooked things, and the colours and patterns which appear there over time. I work with acrylic paints, collage and photography, scratching, scraping and lifting to reveal hidden layers and colours. I enjoy exploring the different textures of paint – brushmarks, glazings and spatters – and pairing this with the starkness of a black and white photographic image. My favourite part of the process isn’t the actual painting, it’s the taking-off of the paint – I do this between each layer with various implements including an old credit card, a rag, a stick or an old quill pen. Although I work with a very considered palette, I’m never 100% sure what lies beneath, and it’s this element of surprise which I find most exciting and which drives me to paint the next picture.’