Clare Bryden is a freelance website developer, writer, and artist based in Exeter. Her interests are wide-ranging, but primarily in the connectedness of humanity: relationships within the self, with our place, with the natural world of which we are part, and with God. Her creative practice springs from her desire to dive deeper into the soul, her attempts to communicate environmental and social issues, her need for hope and energy in keeping on keeping on, and her habit of making connections and finding patterns.
Clare’s environmental art typically takes data visualisation into whole new areas.
She used flood risk data from the Environment Agency in “Green|Blue” to question our knowledge and power in the face of uncertainty and the force of nature.
She has created card games about greenhouse gases; and a series of “Little colouring books of climate mindfulness” using UK Climate Projections data. “Freefall Climate Graffiti” turned UK Climate Projections into a street art project in partnership with an Exeter youth group.
Then there is knitting. For “Particulart: The art of chemistry, knitting and gentle protest”, she knit molecules: air pollution from incinerators, greenhouse gases, vehicle exhausts, and stratospheric ozone depletion chemistry. She created “Ghost Bees” out of knitted plastic bags and milk cartons to highlight colony collapse disorder and species extinction.
In recent years, she has directed her attention to her local place, and to reaching a different audience online. Since 2015 she has been making work under the umbrella of “The internet is my gallery”, including a number of playful pieces arising from her explorations in coding and image manipulation, and others through attentiveness to detail in the natural and human-made. In 2018 she ran a programme of public art in St Loyes City Council ward in Exeter, aimed at nurturing a sense of place among residents and workers, and building community.
Clare’s background is in science, economics, energy and the environment, including employment at Cambridge Econometrics and the Met Office. She is an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Exeter, and was a Resident at Kaleider in Exeter from 2016-21. All is grist to her mill.
