Fashion Designer Claire Barrow Scores First Solo Art Show in London Gallery

Best known for toeing the line between fashion and art with her illustrations on garments, British fashion designer Claire Barrow will have her first solo art show in London in April, showing paintings, drawings and works in neon light at M.Goldstein Gallery.

After bursting onto the scene with a series of painted leather jackets at London Fashion Week for Spring/Summer 2013, Barrow’s eponymous label has gone on to become a cult brand, and her designs are so in-demand that they have even led to capsule collections with retailers such as MatchesFashion.com. She also collaborated earlier this year with Reba Maybury, editor of Sang Bleu magazine (which is on hiatus until 2017), on a wearable art collaboration called “Fish Wifes” [sic].

Yet, art has always been a part of her DNA, and drawing is a daily ritual that is central to her creative output. For this show, titled "Claire Barrow: Bed, Bath & Beyond," Barrow is presenting works around archetypal demons. She has drawn and painted them in her signature neo-primitive style, where classical themes of death, baptism and rebirth are juxtaposed against comparatively contemporary rituals like taking a shower. Some pieces are wearable painted canvas dresses; other media used include marker pen on toilet paper, and neon light on perspex.

Dress: short white prom dresses

The show came about after Barrow met M.Goldstein’s co-owner Nathaniel Lee-Jones in 2015, when he asked her to paint a triptych on canvas — which the gallery later sold. Having recently redone the gallery space on Hackney Road, Lee-Jones approached Barrow again, this time for a solo show.

“I feel very lucky that he has chosen me to represent and show there,” Barrow tells Blouin Lifestyle. “It's a great space, quite small and without fuss — just one room. A lot of my ideas for this show are about 'cleanliness versus godliness' and I think the space feels almost like a bathroom!”

We caught up with Barrow ahead of the opening of her show:

What does it mean to you to have your first solo art show?

I'm very excited. I'm used to having to think how my work will look on a human body, as so much of my fashion work is about the art on the garments. It feels like the natural direction for me to be working on canvas and sculpture.

How do you approach fashion as a canvas for your art, and how does it differ from what you've created for your gallery show?

For the gallery show, I don't have the restrictions of how my ideas will look on the human body. But now I'm having to consider how they will look [when] static, and in a way, it's a lot more unforgiving. The artworks can't hide in the same way that they can when clothed on a human body.

The work in this show is a combination of re-imagined Renaissance paintings of scenes of Christianity's view of hell, with my own clinical and awkward additions to counteract their seriousness. Set against these are white neon light [iterations of] friendly ghosts and comical demon-like presences. I like the ethereal, clinical feel of these characters.

Fashion is about identity in so many ways: When someone wears one of my pieces of clothing they instantly become something else. Hopefully, people will want to have and to hold pieces from the show in the same way they would one of my garments.

How do you deal with the challenges of being a niche designer in a world of commercial fashion?

People have tried to push and pull me in different ways to become 'commercial' which I think I effectively have become. Now I find that I want to re-evaluate and realign myself with what I initially set out to do, which was to make good work. For my Fall-Winter 2016 collection I actually painted huge pieces of canvas at Elms Lesters Painting Rooms, which I then hand-sewed into huge couture garments — and then they went straight on sale. In contrast to that, I have done collaborations with brands such as John Smedley, which are very commercial. But every item in every fashion collection has artworks on it, whether they be painted or printed.

You're known for culturally or politically engaging work. What are the themes and touchstones that drive your exploration of these matters?

What's happening around me in my own reality and the whole of Britain. I'm from the northeast of England, from a town called Yarm in Stockton-on-Tees, and I didn't have any interest in politics until I was around 16 or 17 years old. Since then, I've felt like I want to cause trouble in some way, as best I can. Going to college and getting into punk music opened my eyes a lot. I came straight out of school and went to fashion college, then fashion university and then straight into showing at London Fashion Week and selling my designs. I've done a lot of work now and made a lot of bold choices.

Who are the artists, living or dead, who inspire you?

I'm not interested in mentioning anyone dead because I feel everyone is too nostalgic and should live in the present. I want to learn to think in a way that is looking forward and experimental. Right now, I'm really into Will Sheldon and Liv Fontaine.

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