Cycle Lace

Working with traditional craft skills in a fine art environment, the work of the textile artist Claire Barber has an uncanny likeness to well known textile techniques – embroidery, lace etc – and yet its alien forms come from seemingly unrelated processes. The two pieces 'Touching Iceland with Silk' and 'Cycle Lace' illustrate Claire's interest in "using the idea that many small actions repeated over and over again can make a difference to our lives." The works, that appear to be some kind of ancient buried relic, are the products of silk wrapped around bicycle wheels and driven across the harsh Icelandic landscape. Each of the pieces act as records of the rhythmic and repeated pounding of the tyres against the terrain. Focusing on the interconnection between place and the way people are connected to their surrounding environment, Claire's body of work is predominantly site related. Claire Barber