Claire Bridge
I explore notions of hybridity through sculpture, ceramics, painting, installation and moving image. I am interested in the abject, hybrid and monstrous body. My work delves into the body as material, polyphonic voice and relational multiplicities embedded in cultural and environmental ecosystems. In these times of ecological crisis, I seek to rupture perceptions of a distinct individual self, and question notions of the defined. Unearthing obscured stories, my practice provokes conversation about cultural, political, and societal transformation.
Through materials and process, I reach into the mythologies and symbolic languages of my mixed eastern and western cultural heritage to explore transformation. Drawing on science, ecology and imagination, I incorporate personal biographies and cross-cultural mythologies of decay, ritual and regeneration into chimeric conglomerations and hybrid beings. With my mixed Anglo-Indian-Australian and culturally Deaf heritages, as a hearing, bilingual (Auslan-English) artist, I consider how hyphenated ways of being may queer dominant paradigms and give rise to potential new narratives.
I create commissioned private and public artwork, produce exhibitions and offer writing services.