FINE ART
biography
Victoria Celeste Clarke (b.1983) is an English artist based in Wiltshire, UK. The daughter of painter and sculptor Karen Pilkington-Miksa – she grew up appreciating the wealth of possibilities inherent in the visual art form. A degree in creative writing at Brown University took Victoria down a different artistic path, and a subsequent Master's in Screenwriting led to short film recognition at a number of international film festivals, including the BFI, Berlinale and Sundance.
It wasn’t until late 2019 that Victoria first discovered a consuming passion for visual art. A year after the birth of her youngest son, with the first COVID lockdown soon to follow, she began producing works in charcoal, chalk pastel, and eventual oil pastel - which quickly became her medium of choice:
"As a 40 year-old professional and mother of two, oil pastels give me the freedom to be impulsive in the space I’ve carved out as my own. I chase the comfort of defined boundaries, while simultaneously destroying them. I labour over oil-smooth geometric shapes, yet derive equal pleasure from scraping them back with a palette knife and using the offcuts in other pieces. I create scenes of crowds in motion one day, and depict the solitude of an empty street the next. My studio is the gateway to endless adventures.”
Anglo-American by both birth and lived experience, Victoria is primarily inspired by the works of English painter L.S Lowry and American painter Edward Hopper, as well as a number of contemporary urban night photographers such as Liam Wong, Mike Will and Barima Edusei. She continues to explore the myriad opportunities for expression the medium provides.
FOLLOWING BOTH THE CRITICAL AND COMMERCIAL SUCCESS OF HER DEBUT EXHIBITION AT THE tABERNACLE gALLERY IN lONDON IN JUNE 2023, VICTORIA IS CURRENTLY DEVELOPING A NEW LINE OF WORKS AND ACCEPTING REGULAR COMMISSIONS. Her pieces now feature in private collections across the UK, europe, Russia, the caribbean and Australia .
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