Painting, Installation, Photography/video and Performance are a few of the disciplines and mediums in which Claridge works freely in interpretation and experimentation. His biggest inspiration is travel and the poetics of everyday life. Claridge’s primary ambition is to create art that evokes a perceptive change in the way people view art; seeking to change their mind on a piece of work. He aims to create an insight into ‘the everyday’ by presenting a blurring between reality and obscurity of mundane events, to capture moments of raw life as they occur and alter its narrative.
The Poetics of The Everyday - 'Poetics of The Everyday' explores the mundane banality of everyday life. The hybrid work contrasts this ideal with a bright, explosive use of colour. By obscuring aspects of the photograph, we, the viewer, are consciously forced to complete the narrative. The work aims to provoke the audience with both frustration and intrigue whilst being faced with an aesthetically pleasing image.
Will Claridge graduated from Falmouth University with a BA in Fine Art. His work reflects contemporary culture through its innovative blend of photography, painting and installation. Fascinated by themes of banality, the quotidian and the everyday, the power of Claridge’s art lies in its ability to change focus: what do we see, these pieces seem to ask, when the artist subverts the conventional focal point? What do we see when our vision is obstructed, when the abstract crashes in on the figurative, when the blur of an out of focus photograph demands our undivided attention? Finishing his original photographic works with hand-applied, tactile details, Claridge’s artworks are out of the ordinary: these poetic snapshots are powerful, visually arresting, and totally compelling. This is the everyday; but not as you’ve ever seen in it before.
- Art Republic 2020
