Overview
Claire Pestaille's work explores historical and contemporary iconography, examining the construction of femininity through the disruption of photographic imagery. Uncannily bewitching and intricately delicate, her artwork exudes dualities of beauty and horror, glamour and subversion.  The source material for her work includes portraiture from the Golden Age of Hollywood incorporating film stills along with contemporary and vintage photography. These snapshot images containing memories of a past age fulfill a sense of nostalgia, identity and authorship which are transformed and re-imagined through the act of collage and painting.  A new conversation or connection becomes established through the deconstruction of one image and its marriage with another.  Pestaille adopts a variety of methods  in order to produce these often,  psychologically charged works. The final result questions the conceptual nature of the image and our relationship to it, offering an alternative way of seeing and understanding the collective memory of images pervasively part our cultural landscape.

Claire Pestaille lives and works in London, UK. 

She graduated fron the Royal College of Art in 2000 and has since exhibited internationally, including France, Vienna, Switzerland, USA and Hong Kong. Her work is in private collections including The Saatchi Collection, The Zabludowicz Collection, Project New Art Netherlands, TI Group Art Collection, Kate Moss, Soho House, The Ned and Cafe Royal.

Full CV and Bibliography (PDF, opens in a new tab.)
Review in online Art blog Xamou October 2015
Works
Exhibitions
Bibliography

The Age of Collage vol. 3, with a text by Francesca Gavin, Published by Gestalten, October 2020, 24 x 30 cm. hardcover, stitch bound, 320 pages, ISBN: 978-3-89955-110-5

 

England: Talking of Art, Imago Mundi, Contemporary Artists from England. Francesca Gavin and Pernilla Holmes 2018 Published 2020-11-09 978-88-8435105-0

 

Promenades Insomniaques. Sleeping and dreaming in contemporary art , curator Marie Shek.  Exhibition July 11- September 11, 2008. Catalogue produced by Michael Gordon, text by Julia Kristeva, Peretz Lavie and Marie Shek.

 

Eyemazing Susan, Annual Pictorial 2014. Published 2018 by Eyemazing Edtions. ISBN 978-90-822754-0-7

 

Necromancy by Claire Pestaille. Short stories by Claire Pestaille to accompany her solo exhibition, Necromancy at Rokeby Gallery. Essay by David Thorp. Cover Image, The Swallow Song, from the Saatchi Collection, London, Published by Rokeby. ISBN 0-9550501-2-x.

 

Kilimanjaro Magazine, edition 'When I was 17' (2005). Short story by Claire Pestaille titled 'Dreamscreen (Talisha Mariposa's Journal, August 5, 1864)' editor Olu Michael Odukoya.

 

Moon Man 'Edition E' (2017). Published by Moon Man studios ltd, editor Anna Peftieva. ISSN 2515-7019

 

Tallulah Magazine, Published by Gold Key Media.

 

Same as it ever was, painting at Chelsea, 1990-2007. Edited by Clyde Hopkins and Chris Wainwright. ISBN 978-1-906203-15-3.

 

Miser&Now Magazine. Edited by Andrew Clarkin and Simon Pittuck.  Including a short story  and art work by Claire Pestaille entitled 'The Prince, Chaper IV". ISBN 1742-5166.

 

Faltering Flame. Aspects of the human condition in contemporary art., curated by David Thorp. Catalogue to accompany the exhibition at Graves Art Gallery and museums trust, Sheffield February 9- May 7 2005. ISBM 0-9546913-2-6

Pine Magazine 'Brazen' (2016) essay by Sarah Sharp ISBN74470-29704

 

Full CV and Bibliography