Katharine Claringbould
Building 9, Arches Gallery
www.kaliamosaics.com | kate@kclaringbouldart.com
Medium: Bead Mosaics
Trooper, 2021
The Bee!, 2021
Hope, 2023
Crashing Waves, 2022
United Lizards, 2024
Future Butterfly I, 2022
My Ocean Home, 2022
Deferred Dreams, 2023
Forest Landscape 2, 2023
Lone Tree 1, 2023
Background
Kate Claringbould grew up in Australia surrounded by vibrant colors, sights and sounds. These childhood experiences are reflected in the art that Kate creates, from the subject matter, to the colors she uses and to the style of the art itself.
Kate is a self-taught bead artist. For many years Kate explored a variety of artistic mediums: painting, drawing, peyote-stitch bracelets. However, in early 2020 Kate took an online mosaic class. While there, Kate realized that her love of beads fit naturally into this new field. Thus, in August 2020, Kate became a bead mosaicist.
Kate loves beads because of the way they shine and change, depending on the light, the type of bead and how you place them. They remind her of human nature, always changing, never still. In 2021 Kate was the winner of the Tapestry category of the Museum of Bead Work’s “Wings and Stings” competition.
In 2022 and 2023 she was recognized by the Luxembourg Art Prize and the Pinachothèque Museum for Artistic Achievement. Kate was also part of the inaugural exhibition at the Museum of Beadwork with her winning piece displayed from August 2023 to May 2024.
Artistic Philosophy
I use beads to express myself as I love the way they shine and change depending on the light, the type of bead and how you place them. They remind me of myself and of human nature. We also live, breathe and change, always dynamic, never static, glowing softly one minute, shining brightly the next. I place the beads in Apoxie Sculpt (Apoxie Sculpt is a waterproof, permanent epoxy-type modeling clay which once dry, does not allow for corrections) and I begin to write, knowing that as each bead is placed it will become an exploration of myself, of materials and techniques and of what together we are able to learn and achieve.