Clee Claire Lee South Yorkshire, United Kingdom
I work from Yorkshire Artspace, Sheffield. My sculpture & installation practice uses steel wire, salvaged materials & writing to explore invisibility, voicelessness & the politics of periphery. By refusing tidy coherence, my work becomes embodied communication supporting marginalised narratives, tracing links between historical & contemporary silencing, & challenging expectations of expression.
I am a Sheffield based artist working from Yorkshire Artspace, and an elected member of the Royal Society of Sculptors. My practice centres on sculpture and installation, sometimes incorporating text, sound and my own body as material. I work extensively with steel wire, shaping it through slow, intuitive labour into raw, ethereal or dissonant forms, or weaving it — literally or metaphorically — through salvaged objects and fragments of earlier pieces to connect ideas across time and space. Writing is part of this process too, used as another material to interrupt or redirect.
My work examines invisibility and voicelessness and the political weight of occupying the periphery — the unstable ground between belonging and exclusion. By refusing the tidy coherence expected by normative structures, my pieces become forms of embodied communication, using objects as stand ins for the silenced body and its alternative ways of organising experience. These gestures trace lines between historical and contemporary silencing, making visible the continuities that determine who is heard and who is not. Collaboration runs through this approach, informing decisions, guiding processes and creating space for marginalised narratives to surface while challenging expectations of form, language and expression.
Artwork
Cloche Project I, 2020
Fleeting Memories, Steel, wire, scrim, plaster+, 2019
On Caul, Steel, wire, scrim, plaster+, 2019
Heirloom, Stainless steel wire, perspex box, 2019
Sojourn, mild steel wire , 2014
Roots I, wire and pencil on canvas, 2016
Roots II, Mixed media, 2018
Entails II, Mild steel wire , 2018
Entails I, Mild steel wire , 2018
The Peal of Silence, Stainless steel wire, perspex box, 2017
Vestige, Self and Birch, steel, wire, scrim, plaster+, 2014
The Twins and Skin, Galvanised chicken wire, 2007
Liberation Through, Mild steel wire and steel tubing, 2012
Limn, Mild steel wire on steel tubing, 2013
Triple Bodice Rising, Mild steel wire, light, shadow, 2017
Potential Space (components), Mild steel wire, pebbles, 2016
Bodies within Bodies, Mild steel wire, pebbles, 2018
A Void, Mild steel wire, clingfilm, 2015
Songlines of the Body I: Potential Space, Mild steel wire, light, shadow, 2016
Through Not Hearing, Mild steel wire sculpture, 2012
Projects and exhibitions
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Visibilising the Invisible - On Caul: Unpaid Labour12/09/2019 — 29/09/2019 Installation exhibited as part of a group show, What is the Matter? Materials, Commodities, Narratives, with the women sculptors’ collective, Material Voice. Funded by Arts Council England, and in collaboration with Kelham Island Museum. |
Kelham Island Museum, Sheffield, Sheffield | Details |
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Regardez la fenêtre - Embodying Space and Dialogue05/09/2018 — 27/09/2018 A 3-week public residency, led by myself, including the building of a site-sensitive sculptural installation and a series of collaborative experiments with artists and academics, including different sculptural media, language, improvised sound and dance. The residency culminated in an improvised sharing and performance between the different... [Read more] |
Access Space Labs, Fitzalan Square, Sheffield | Details |
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Wire Inquiry in Slovakia21/05/2018 — 28/05/2018 A Research and Development award from Making Ways, a programme supported by Sheffield Culture Consortium through Arts Council England to showcase, celebrate and develop the exceptional contemporary visual art produced in the city. |
Bratislava and Zilina | Details |
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The Copse Project01/05/2018 — 30/09/2018 An interactive art installation. Workshops on weaving with wire, led by myself, allowed participants to contribute to the development of a public installation. |
Eyam, Derbyshire | Details |
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Syn-Aesthetic01/12/2017 — 12/01/2018 A collaboration, led by myself, with artists and dancers in improvised sculpture, movement and performance. |
Exchange Place Studios, Sheffield | Details |
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Songlines of the Body - I: Potential Space, II: FACE01/04/2016 — 30/09/2016 Sculpture, light and sound installation as part of Masters in Fine Art (studied at Nottingham Trent University) |
Exchange Place Studios and Gallery 35, Sheffield | Details |