Claire Nichols will investigate how improvisation and live performance can offer meeting points between all three fields of her research – sculpture, movement and sound. She will work towards a large-scale performance that fully explores the possibilities of movement and corollary sonic vibrations in creating a truly multi-sensory performance.
Nichols is interested in reaching new audiences through her work. Whilst in residence at Yellow Brick, she will test how she might extend her practice through exploring workshop formats and modes of audience interaction.
Images:
- Hangar Variations (2021), installation view, live performance
- Maus Hábitos Variations (2023), detail view, live performance
- Ecole des Sables Variations (2022), performance still
is a London-based artist working with performance and sculpture.
She has been developing Variations, a series of audio-visual performances, since 2017. She creates live drawings in space with materials that are often formless, sometimes dispersing sawdust and flour into closed spaces, or using lights and mirrors to make improvised shadow formations. These constellations are triggered by a musical score in a live performance.
Through her Variations series, she works with improvisation and live performance, exploring how these modes can offer meeting points between the fields of sculpture, movement and sound. These forms and disciplines unite to become hybrid performances in process.
Nichols’ Variations series has been recognised via the Barbican Arts group Trust Main Prize Award, selected by Florence Peake and Tai Shani in 2018, and the PLÁKA Porto Award in 2023. The series has been exhibited at galleries including Florence Trust and Arebyte, London; Space 118, Mumbai; Hangar, Barcelona; and Maus Hábitos, Porto.