Clare De Mayo grew up in the beach suburb of Cronulla, which instilled in her a love of the physical environment and a certain sense of longing for a cultural climate more akin to her creative inclinations…. sojourning in Inner City Sydney and living for 6 years in Dunedin, New Zealand have been part of this quest. She now resides in the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney, and her recent series of paintings focus on Canopies, ‘The realm between heaven and earth’. Clare says, ‘Sometimes life just seems to be a chaotic confusion of conflicting needs and directions, but looking up into the canopy can give a sense that this confusion can have particular beauty, and contain within it the fertility and promise of a new season’.

Clare De Mayo completed her initial Fine Art studies at Alexander Mackie, which is now the College of Fine Art (UNSW). She majored in painting, but also studied textiles, ceramics and drawing. She developed her painting practice and has held 9 solo exhibitions of her works and also participated in numerous group exhibitions. She has supported her painting practice as an Arts educator in Art Schools, TAFE Colleges and secondary and primary schools, and also as a costume maker and designer for various theatre companies in Sydney and New Zealand. Clare recently completed a Master of Fine Arts at Otago Polytechnic, Dunedin, New Zealand.

Clare’s painting style is strongly influenced by the post impressionists, expressionists and Abstract Expressionists: Matisse, DeKooning, Pollack, Klimpt, Rothko. Her Australian influences are Arthur Boyd, Fred Williams, Bill Robinson and Jenny Sages. Clare uses a variety of media, including house paint, pastel and fabric printing ink, and develops an underpainting to which she then applies a number of glazes and surface treatments. She has recently completed a number of multi-panel works. Clare aims to capture the atmosphere and ‘moment’ in each piece, to instill an emotional element into her work.