Clare Arentzen

I have a lot of fun painting people’s pets! They are all so unique, with their own quirks and individual personalities, and I love the challenge of capturing that spirit in paint. If you’re interested in commissions, head over to my “Pet Portrait Commissions” page.

A series of birds of the Maine Coast

A series of 3.5” x 5.5” mini paintings

Found Objects (Ready-mades)
As a Springfield, IL native, my work is an exploration of how my Midwestern roots have shaped my sense of the world. I think Joe Scanlan, my advisor, describes this work best: enigmatically, “Midwestern Existentialism”. I’m very interested in found objects removed from their context, objects that are authentic and individual in their own right – objects that speak for themselves but say little, that are what they are, that are subtly surprising. Many of these objects mimic natural materials, and are often unremarkable, past their prime – rusted metals bent beyond use, old iron pipes, discarded hardware, roadside refuse. I don’t think of giving them new life, but more reminding people that the objects served a purpose. There is nostalgia behind it, and a touch of death, of preservation and cataloguing, tying in my interests in biology and natural history. This work is subtle, and sometimes unsettling in its refusal to be anything other than what it is.

Found Objects (Natural readymades)
My work with natural objects like branches, tree trunks, bird nests, rocks, bones, plant matter, etc. is a celebration of nature and natural processes. Nature is my escape, the place where I feel most at home, an attitude engrained since my childhood. Though it is important for me to manipulate the things I collect in some way, the intervention is done not to erase the hand of nature, but to highlight it. For instance, I laboriously shave and smooth the neck of a tree stump to create contrast to the unmanipulated roots growing from the other end. I see this work being about perceptions of perfection and how these perceptions relate to the natural form, which for me is the basis of beauty. It is a way for me to point out how I view the natural world, all the subtle detail I notice that gives it such a colorful and rich beauty.

Handmade Objects
In all my work process and labor is important. For the found objects, that process and labor is manifested in the act of collection – walking for miles, carrying awkward and bulky objects through the woods. But again, because of my Midwestern upbringing, the craft and workmanship behind the art is a necessary element. Making work that I have spent long hours carving, scraping, and laboring over is therapeutic for me. In this case, the act of making as well as the final result is the art. It is an interesting contrast to the objects in which I have no hand in making, but these concepts are connected in the process, the repetition of action, and the therapy that makes art freeing for me.

I moved to Chicago straight from a job on the Appalachian Trail. Before that, I’d been living in only rural, wooded places.  Dirt had always been in abundance, a given.  Thus, I was struck, perusing Craigslist for free stuff for my new apartment, by the frequency of listings for dirt.  In an urban setting like Chicago, the quality and quantity of available dirt becomes valued.  It is important if the dirt is organic, chemical free, topsoil, or clay.  It is even important to make the distinction between dirt and soil.  People take pride in their “good dirt”.  In an effort to understand this concept, I answered every listing on Craigslist for free dirt between September 12, 2014 and May 1, 2015.  I don’t always succeed in obtaining the dirt, but it is through the process of answering the listings and conversing with the sellers that the commodity and value of urban soil is revealed.

Independent work made between Fall 2014 and Spring 2015 while studying at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Artist Statement for SAIC Body of Work

My work is largely collection-based, and I focus on the action of collection as the artistic process. I walk for miles through the woods, take journeys with no predetermined destination, poke around back roads, side streets, and alleys, and explore abandoned human spaces.  During these events, I’m interested in chance encounters with objects – striking oddities of nature, or relics of former human use/intervention that are now abandoned or displaced. These objects draw me because they often defy or have been removed from their context. For me, there is reverence and nostalgia behind them, making my practice one of preservation and recontextualization, tying in my interests in biological preservation and natural history.

I want my work to be read as artifacts, as things I’ve brought back from my wanderings and explorations of unknown spaces so the viewer may experience what I did. These are the items that in my world signify the artistic event as I allow myself to be an observer. I’m interested in blurring the absoluteness of an art object, and looking more towards the action or concept that the object signifies.In all my work labor in the process is paramount. This is manifested in the effort of carrying awkward and bulky objects through the woods, and generally doing this alone. My rural Midwestern upbringing compels this labor and self-reliance. But it is not a labor of toil, it is one of a joy in doing.